Clinton Pollster Argues Trump ‘Entirely Justified’ Bashing Media’s Iran Coverage: Many ‘Rooting for America to Lose’

(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein)

President Donald Trump’s complaints about how the media has covered the war in Iran are “entirely justified,” according to an op-ed published by Mark Penn — a former pollster for President Bill Clinton — and former New York City Council president Andrew Stein in the Wall Street Journal.

Penn and Stein argued the mainstream press appears hellbent on painting Operation Epic Fury negatively, no matter how the war is actually going.

Their Monday article — titled “On Iran, Is Only Bad News Fit to Print?” — said coverage of the war has gone far beyond merely being critical and instead reflects “reportorial partisanship and the Democrats’ determination” to oppose Trump at every turn.

Here is the key paragraph from their op-ed:

Journalists have a right and a duty to report bad news and to question Pollyannaish reports from the U.S. government. But many seem to be going beyond that and rooting for America to lose—against an enemy that is the world’s biggest state sponsor of terror, that has killed thousands of unarmed protesters, and that stockpiled thousands of ballistic missiles while seeking nuclear weapons, which its rulers promised to use against the U.S. and Israel.

The pair pointed to Trump’s post last week about the U.S. “totally destroying” Iran’s theocratic regime, which Trump said readers would have no idea about if they are reading the “Failing New York Times.”

Stein and Penn agreed with Trump, saying front page headlines in the paper like “War Sends More Tremors Through a Shaken World Economy,” complete with a “speculative subheadline” about the war potentially having “catastrophic consequences,” inaccurately frame the war.

Their defense of Trump stands out, considering Penn was Clinton’s pollster for years and Stein was a top New York City Democrat. It also comes as Trump is suing The Wall Street Journal for $10 billion. 

Both men said the six war-related stories inside the paper were just as “relentlessly negative,” pointing to a “disdainful” story on Secretary of State Marco Rubio and “economic gloom” in stories about oil prices. They said The New York Times isn’t the only outlet framing the war in a negative light; most other outlets are also trying to “advance a narrative that Mr. Trump is wrong about everything and that the U.S. is getting its clock cleaned,” Penn and Stein argued.

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