During his Wednesday morning appearance on Breitbart News Daily with SiriusXM hosts Stephen K. Bannon and Alex Marlow, veteran political strategist Pat Caddell was furious over the Associated Press prematurely declaring the Democratic presidential primary over, and coronating Hillary Clinton as the nominee, before Tuesday night’s important votes were cast.
“I have to tell you, somebody’s got to say that what the AP did, in announcing that she had won, the nomination was over, on the eve of the voting of these seven primaries, was so irresponsible an act,” Caddell said. “And it was a purposefully irresponsible act, in my opinion.”
“You know, on the eve of the primaries to do that, to tell people that it’s all over, and they announced in the New York Times, huge headline, it’s all over, it’s historic — it’s beyond irresponsible to the Nth degree. What we don’t know is how much that suppressed the vote,” said Caddell. “It’s like, we do know the experience we saw in 1980 when President Carter conceded before the West Coast polls closed. We saw it in Florida in the Western Panhandle in 2000, when they announced that Florida had been won by Gore. It affects the vote. And you look how close some of these states were, in California, you have to ask yourself, hmm, what is that?”
He estimated the turnout from these last Democratic primaries would prove to be “about half what it was in ‘08,” attributing this partly to the early call made by the Associated Press.
“There’s an editorial judgment here. Not the reporting style, I’m not questioning that. I’m questioning the judgment of putting it out on the eve of all these votes, including in the largest state,” said Caddell, noting that on the Republican side, Donald Trump was not formally declared the nominee until he had “no more opponents left in the race.”
“You put your thumb on the scales, knowing everyone will report it, knowing you’re announcing it’s all over from the media,” he said critically. “The AP was once the great, I think always viewed as essentially unbiased, news-gathering organization around the world. They were purchased some time ago. They have had a particular political hue to what they do.”
“I just think this is outrageous,” said Caddell. “It kind of put a damper on the Clinton campaign last night. They weren’t happy with it. But the AP, and the New York Times, I’m sure they were so excited with each other and what they had done.”
“Look, we have a real – and it’s got to be addressed – basic problem with the media in this country right now, which is the media has never been – look, they have been putting their finger on the scales for some years, by what they cover, and what they don’t cover,” he said, citing their reluctance to cover the revelations in Peter Schweizer’s Clinton Cash, and the new documentary film based upon it, which Caddell described as “powerful.”
“Despite Bob Woodward saying, about a year ago or more, over the summer of last year, saying ‘Oh, no, no, every news organization is gonna be following up on this’ – no, they did it once, and that’s about all they’ve touched,” said Caddell. “And yet, they go after Donald Trump for everything. I’m for candidates being vetted. What I’m against is when one candidate is vetted, and the other candidate is not covered at all, basically.”
On the other hand, Caddell said a friend with media connections told him, “My God, to enter the newsrooms at the New York Times and the Washington Post is to enter a freaking jihad against Donald Trump.”
He said that’s why he didn’t have a problem with Trump’s assaults on the media. “I don’t think he needs to attack the individual reports. I’m not sure that’s fair,” Caddell judged. “But if he doesn’t attack the press, he will suffer the same fate Republicans have about forever, in the recent decades, which is allowing, by your silence, to give some kind of level of accreditation to what the media’s doing.”
“This is really dangerous,” he warned. “Because in the end, a media that decides its job is to tell you, first, who you may vote for, and who you may not, and second being – and worse – what truth you can know, and what truth you may not know, until it fits our tests – that is a media that is making freedom of the press a far less important value for voters in America.”
Marlow noted that the Associated Press has tremendous influence as a provider of wire copy for other major media organizations, including Fox News and CNN. “What the Associated Press goes is really considered gospel in a lot of newsrooms, just to show you how egregious this was,” he observed.
Breitbart News Daily airs on SiriusXM Patriot 125 weekdays from 6:00 a.m. to 9:00 a.m. Eastern.
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