‘Bury the Lead!’ Ed Schultz Unfairly Blasts CNN’s Jake Tapper for de Blasio Comments

In his “Pretenders” segment Thursday night, The Ed Show host Ed Schultz took aim at CNN’s Jake Tapper, exclaiming “Bury The Lead!” (the name of Tapper’s show) and slamming his coverage of Mayor Bill de Blasio‘s (D-NY) inauguration. Schultz noted that Mayor de Blasio campaigned on the issue of income inequality, which naturally came up in his inaugural speech. “Well, de Blasio’s commitment to economic justice didn’t resonate with everyone,” Schultz said.

Schultz then played a clip of Tapper’s reporting on the inauguration, in which Tapper noted that de Blasio “was elected with more than 70 percent of the vote” and gave “to his base, to the voters, the progressives in New York City… a very muscular argument in favor of what he wanted to do.”

He added, “But I have to say, there’s another reaction, a lot of times inaugurals are times when people, when presidents or mayors or governors can reach out to critics, reach out to those who maybe didn’t vote for him. This was not that.”

“Mayor de Blasio’s message wasn’t just for the people who voted for him,” Schultz commented. “His message was for the nation, starting with its largest city: income inequality will not be tolerated.”

He added that “if Jake Tapper thinks a man who was elected with 70 percent of the vote for making income inequality the centerpiece of his campaign was wrong for talking about it, he can keep on pretending.”

In the clip in question, though, Tapper didn’t say that Mayor de Blasio was wrong for talking about income inequality, but rather that an often-present olive branch to critics was not included in the speech in addition to the message about inequality. The balance of Tapper’s comments, not aired by Ed, explained that the reaction he was speaking of was not his own, but that of members of former Mayor Mike Bloomberg‘s administration.

Ironically, Schultz’s “Pretenders” segment was preceded by an ad featuring “Papa John” Schnatter, a well-known critic of President Obama and the Affordable Care Act.

Here’s the clip, from The Ed Show:

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