Current Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) tore President Trump’s SOTU speech in half on national television. While she’s being lambasted by both Democrats and Republicans for this petulant, classless display of childish pique, she has also effectively grabbed the spotlight from Trump’s SOTU address.

As Trump supporters busily print out copies of Trump’s SOTU speech to send to Pelosi, it’s worth taking a moment to see how some in the mainstream media responded to Trump’s speech.

Chris “Tingles” Mathews is reported to have “gushed” over it, while over at CBS, the leftie panel compared it to President Reagan’s “Morning in America” speech. And yes, I double-checked, these are not stories from the Babylon Bee.

The progressive outlet the Daily Beast is apoplectic that Matthews noted that normal Americans will love Trump’s speech.

The “thrill up his leg” stamp is priceless. It refers, of course, to Matthews actually gushing about the thrill he felt up his leg upon hearing an Obama speech. By contrast, his comments about Trump’s speech are pretty tame, but any praise of Trump cannot be tolerated.

The Daily Beast reports:

Minutes after President Donald Trump wrapped up his State of the Union address, MSNBC host Chris Matthews praised the president for giving a speech that “regular people” would like, adding that it was full of “good stuff.” With the hour-plus speech featuring made-for-TV feel-good moments such as the president offering a single mother a scholarship for her child and surprising a soldier’s wife with her returning husband, Matthews insisted that “the people where I came from will like the speech.” “I think people will like the speech tonight,” Matthews added. “I think regular people, they’ll see the schmaltz, the corniness, they’ll see it—but they’ll like it! It’s all good stuff, whatever purpose it had.” . . . . At the same time, the MSNBC host took the opportunity to contrast Trump with Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders, whom Matthews has repeatedly criticized in recent weeks. “I’m telling you, Trump set up the fight and he laid down the gauntlet tonight about him and Bernie,” the veteran MSNBC personality declared. “It’s as if he was following Bernie won the popular vote in Iowa yesterday.” “There he is going after Guaidó, going after socialism, tying all socialism to the kind we really don’t like, the tyrannical socialism of the Latin Americans like Castro,” he continued. “I thought that was interesting. Pelosi stood up and applauded that. She knew where this country stands. We don’t like those leaders. And Bernie does. And that’s a problem for him.”

He’s not wrong.

Watch:

Meanwhile, over at CBS, an astounding thing happened: the panel offered positive, if sometimes backhanded, comments about Trump’s speech.

NewsBusters reports:

What was going on CBS Tuesday night during the State of the Union? Do we need to file a slew of missing persons’ reports? Or was there a real-life Invasion of the Body Snatchers? Those answers seemed plausible considering CBS’s overwhelmingly positive reaction to President Trump’s speech. In their post-speech reactions, CBS journalists praised the “master showman” President’s “incredible remarks” that, while “restrained,” showcased “a strong record on the economy” and “emotionally compelling stories” about “great Americans.” Even more surprisingly, the praise was juxtaposed with condemnation for Democrats. . . . . O’Donnell added that “[t]here were many moments….where Republicans leapt to their feet” while “Democrats sat stone faced” and Pelosi was left “pursing her lips, almost looking ill at some of the remarks made as the President touted his accomplishments and those of his administration, including a strong record on the economy.” After a break, O’Donnell went even further, calling the President’s words “[i]ncredible remarks.” And near the end of their coverage, O’Donnell credited him for offering “specific proposals…that might be appealing to independent voters” alongside “emotionally compelling stories” about “great Americans.” At various points in their discussion, 60 Minutes correspondent John Dickerson stated that, while it wasn’t bipartisan in the same way Ronald Reagan’s 1984 address was, “this was his Morning in America speech.” and that Trump was “quite restrained.” . . . . If Democrats want to make an argument to the country, if all the country hears is bickering and unhappiness, it helps an incumbent President with a strong economy and, by the way, doesn’t help anybody looking for solutions that Democrats might have. This is a challenge for Democrats to be able to respond to the arguments the President made with their own strengths. Tearing up papers is not one of their strengths.

As the Democrats shouted out responses, the CBS panel noted the similarity to Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) infamously shouting “you lie” during Obama’s 2009 ObamaCare address to Congress.

NewsBusters continues:

NANCY CORDES: . . . . Democrats got angry very early when the president seemed to suggest he had rescued the economy from the depths of the Obama years. They started shouting out their disagreement to that and several other notions that the President put forward. At one point he said that some people were trying to dismantle health care. They shouted, “You are.” At another point, he claimed that he was going to force prescription drug companies to lower costs. Democrats openly started laughing. This, as Republicans seemed to try to cheer loud enough to make up for the lack of cheering on the Democratic side. So, really, it turned into something of a circus and at one point, one member of Congress, Tim Ryan of Ohio, actually tweeted that he was walking out of the State of the Union because he had had enough. He said, “It’s like watching professional wrestling. It’s all fake.” You know, really a striking turn of events when you think just a decade ago, one member of Congress shouting, “you lie,” at a speech by President Obama in that same chamber generated days of controversy and here you had it happen multiple times in one speech, culminating, of course, with the speaker ripping up that speech.

Watch and/or read the whole thing.

If you haven’t had a chance to watch Trump’s 2020 SOTU, here you go:



