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Media Bubbles: How the Election Is Getting Covered

By The New York Times

As the media landscape has grown increasingly fragmented, many Americans have turned to programs and sites — many of them partisan — that fit their worldview. The Times is taking a regular look at how events during the 2024 presidential campaign are handled by a variety of news and opinion outlets.

Conservative Outlets Take Aim at CNN, While Liberal Outlets Paint Trump As Desperate

Partisan media outlets have fixated this week on Thursday night’s first presidential debate — and how their preferred candidate could prevail.

Many conservative media outlets have parroted former President Donald J. Trump by questioning the fairness of the debate, which CNN will host, as well as President Biden’s fitness for it. Several publications piled on Mr. Trump’s longstanding criticism that CNN is biased against him. Many also repeated Mr. Trump’s baseless claim that Mr. Biden would be under the influence of performance-enhancing drugs during the event.

Liberal outlets criticized Mr. Trump and his campaign for making the claims about CNN and for the barbs about medication, saying both were lobbed out of desperation. They also suggested the debate could show Americans that Mr. Trump was an erratic candidate.

Here’s how a few of these outlets have covered the lead-up to the debate:

Mr. Trump has long criticized CNN for coverage he sees as hostile to him. Those concerns were inflamed on the political right this week when CNN abruptly ended an interview on Monday with a spokeswoman for Mr. Trump’s campaign after she criticized the network’s commentators.

During the interview, with the CNN host Kasie Hunt, Karoline Leavitt of the Trump campaign accused Jake Tapper, a CNN host who is one of the two moderators of the debate, of being biased against Mr. Trump. She said Mr. Tapper had frequently compared Mr. Trump to Adolf Hitler.

Numerous right-wing outlets, including Fox News and The Daily Wire, carried stories attacking the network for silencing Ms. Leavitt and Mr. Trump’s campaign.

On Newsmax, hosts and guests suggested the incident signaled how the network would treat Mr. Trump unfairly at the debate.

“This is a precursor to Thursday,” Hilton Beckham, a communications director for the America First Policy Institute, said during a Monday interview on the Newsmax show “National Report.” “I think eyes need to be a little more on the CNN moderators.”

“The way she shut her down so quickly and actually ended the segment, I just got a weird sense that they’d been directed, that they need to end things,” Bianca de la Garza, a Newsmax host, said Monday on another program, “Newsline.” She did not cite any evidence to support that allegation.

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Mr. Trump has repeatedly suggested that Mr. Biden would need medication in order to perform well at Thursday’s debate.

Mr. Trump’s campaign has also asked Mr. Biden to submit to a drug test before the debate. Mr. Biden’s campaign dismissed the request, saying in a statement that Mr. Trump was “resorting to desperate, obviously false lies.”

Breitbart, a conservative outlet, suggested in an article on Tuesday that Mr. Biden was not healthy. Under the headline “Debate Prep: Donald Trump Agrees to Drug Test if Joe Biden Does,” the writer, Wendell Husebo, pointed to several ailments that were mentioned in Mr. Biden’s latest physical exam, like minor heart arrhythmia and elevated cholesterol.

“The health challenges might explain why he struggles to remain upright,” Mr. Husebo wrote, referring to instances in which Mr. Biden had stumbled or fallen down during his presidency. The physical described Mr. Biden as “healthy.”

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Some progressive outlets have painted Mr. Trump as desperate and fearful that he would lose to Mr. Biden in the debate, even suggesting that his campaign was trying to raise expectations for Mr. Biden’s showing.

Writing for Slate, a liberal news site, Jim Newell said on Tuesday that Mr. Trump’s campaign was trying to avoid the “trap” of attacking Mr. Biden so hard that it ultimately lowered expectations for his opponent’s performance. If that happened, voters could come away thinking Mr. Biden won the debate.

“Members of Team Trump, as well as the candidate himself, have recognized this tendency and are attempting to raise Biden’s expectations,” Mr. Newell wrote. He pointed out that after frequently questioning Mr. Biden’s fitness for a lengthy debate, Mr. Trump recently changed his tune, saying he didn’t “want to underestimate” his opponent.

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The New Republic, a liberal outlet, has over the last week published more than a half-dozen articles critical of Mr. Trump’s approach to the debate.

An article on Tuesday ran with the headline “Panicking Trump Tries Yet Another Get-Out-of-Debate-Free Card.” In it, Edith Olmsted wrote that Mr. Trump’s call for Mr. Biden to be drug tested was an attempt to skip the debate entirely.

“All of this concocted drama around drug use, as well as claims that CNN will host a biased debate, positively reek of desperation to get the former president out of Thursday night’s presidential showdown,” Ms. Olmsted wrote.

Other headlines from the site included “The Insanely Idiotic Ways Trump Is Prepping for the Biden Debate,” “Trump’s Wild Biden Debate Conspiracy Exposes His Own Hypocrisy” and “MAGA’s New Conspiracy to Defend Trump From Biden Debate Is Wildest Yet.”

Fauci’s a Hero or a Villain, Depending on What Outlet You’re Reading

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the former government scientist, has been on something of a media spree in recent weeks, and liberal and conservative media outlets have used very different tones to cover his appearances.

Dr. Fauci, who was director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and the public face of the country’s fight against Covid, is promoting a new memoir, “On Call,” that includes an account of his time in government under former President Donald J. Trump. This month he also testified before Congress in a contentious hearing about the origins of the coronavirus.

Progressive publications have praised Dr. Fauci, quoting extensively from his book and taking the opportunity to criticize Mr. Trump for his policies on Covid.

Conservative outlets have largely ignored Dr. Fauci’s book and focused more on his testimony in Congress. They painted Dr. Fauci as a villain and falsely accused him of helping start the pandemic. The coverage also highlighted an intense divide over the supposed origins of the coronavirus; a 2023 poll by Quinnipiac University showed that more Republicans than Democrats believe it originated from a lab leak.

Here’s how some of those outlets have covered Dr. Fauci in recent days:

Throughout the pandemic, Democrats viewed Dr. Fauci as a hero and the vanguard of the scientific community’s dissent against Mr. Trump, who supported opening businesses and schools before vaccines were available and railed against wearing masks.

MSNBC, which has long praised Dr. Fauci for his handling of the public health response to Covid-19, characterized him as a bulwark against Mr. Trump and Republicans. Rachel Maddow, the popular host on the network, promoted Dr. Fauci’s book, calling it “fascinating.”

“The Trump movement and its members in Congress and its supporters in the media are still going after Dr. Fauci,” Ms. Maddow said on “The Rachel Maddow Show” on Tuesday, because “he represents expertise.”

While interviewing Dr. Fauci on his show “The Beat” on Tuesday, the MSNBC host Ari Melber said Mr. Trump had lost the 2020 election in part because of his handling of the pandemic. In a June 4 article, Steve Benen, an MSNBC contributor, wrote “there was no case to bring” against Dr. Fauci for his handling of the pandemic.

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HuffPost, a liberal news outlet, published four separate articles based on individual anecdotes in Dr. Fauci’s book, all of which relied on the scientist’s recollections of interactions with Mr. Trump.

One article focused on Dr. Fauci’s recounting of the “Surprising Aftermath of Correcting Donald Trump on Live TV,” referring to an encounter in which Dr. Fauci rejected Mr. Trump’s false claim that the drug hydroxychloroquine could cure Covid-19. Dr. Fauci outlined in his book that though he expected Mr. Trump to berate him, the former president celebrated the program’s ratings instead.

In its coverage of Dr. Fauci’s testimony earlier in June, HuffPost focused more on Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the Georgia Republican, who it said went on “an off-topic rant” about animal testing during his testimony.

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In conservative media, Dr. Fauci has become a symbol of what many conservatives saw as governmental overreach during the pandemic.

The New York Post homed in this week on a comment made by Dr. Fauci on CBS News on Tuesday, where he said keeping schools closed for a year was “a mistake.”

The right-leaning outlet’s headline said Dr. Fauci “finally reverses course, agrees keeping schools closed during COVID was ‘mistake.’” The article highlighted Dr. Fauci’s cautious approach to reopening schools in 2020, as well as statistics that found student learning suffered during the pandemic.

The New York Post has featured other criticisms of Dr. Fauci recently as well. On June 15, the site ran an article that said he “bragged” about turning down a lucrative offer from a private company in order to keep working for the government, citing an interview with “CBS Sunday Morning” in which Dr. Fauci said he received job offers from pharmaceutical companies and private equity firms.

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The Washington Examiner, a conservative site that has also criticized Dr. Fauci for his handling of the pandemic, published two articles this week as part of a series it calls “Fauci Unmasked” that chronicles some of his work on Covid-19.

The first article ran with the headline “Clearing the record on masks, social distancing, and vaccines.” In it, the writer Gabrielle M. Etzel said Dr. Fauci “flip-flopped on the use of mandates and social pressure to increase vaccination rates.” Dr. Fauci did not initially support the widespread use of masks.

The second article, also by Ms. Etzel, focused on the congressional investigation into the origins of the pandemic, and described Dr. Fauci as “a person of interest” in that inquiry. But the article also acknowledged that the investigation had not found Dr. Fauci knew about “possibly dangerous research at the Wuhan lab.”

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Conservative Media Criticizes the Same Inflation Numbers that Liberal Media Outlets Are Cheering

Prices rose 3.3 percent in May from a year earlier, according to data released Wednesday, a lower number than expected. Partisan media outlets covered that number very differently.

Conservative sites acknowledged there has been progress in the fight to bring down inflation. But they also used the announcement to criticize President Biden’s handling of the economy, saying the figure was too high to begin with.

Some liberal sites celebrated the news as a victory for Mr. Biden’s economic agenda.

Inflation is a key concern for Americans in this fall’s election, polling shows. And for most voters, their assessment of the economy mirrors the media landscape: Democrats tend to approve of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, while Republicans disapprove of his job on the issue.

Here’s how a sampling of outlets covered the news:

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Conservative commentators and outlets have persistently blamed Mr. Biden’s policies for spurring high inflation, driving up the cost of everything from basic necessities to airline tickets. Like Republican lawmakers, conservative outlets have repeatedly referred to the increasing prices as “Bidenflation.”

Inflation reached a four-decade high of 9.1 percent in June 2022. The rate has since fallen considerably, but it remains higher than the Federal Reserve’s target of 2 percent.

A conservative site, The Daily Wire has been critical of Mr. Biden’s handling of the economy, running a four-part series looking at how “‘Bidenomics’ is eviscerating the American people.”

In an article with the headline “Joe Biden’s Fragile Economy,” the writer Jim Nelles said the promising inflation report, along with a booming stock market, showed an economy that was strong on the surface. But those numbers masked deeper problems, he said.

“The cumulative impact of inflation, combined with high interest rates, is putting the dream of home-ownership further out of reach for most young and working-class Americans,” Mr. Nelles wrote.

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Reacting to Wednesday’s inflation report, The National Review, a conservative news site and magazine, published an article with the headline “3.3 Percent Is Not Good Enough.” The writer Dominic Pino argued that the Federal Reserve, which has raised interest rates to bring down inflation, must keep those rates where they are until inflation comes back down to 2 percent. His view stands in contrast to that of many progressives, who say inflation is now low enough for the Fed to cut interest rates, which are squeezing poor Americans.

“The Fed’s duty is to price stability and full employment, not to the financial sector, or to whiny politicians who also want rate cuts,” Mr. Pino wrote.

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Liberal commentators have focused on the country’s historically strong job growth under Mr. Biden, as well as the low level of unemployment.

They have often blamed large corporations for inflation rates, which they say would have been high regardless of who was president because of supply chain issues and the geopolitical instability caused by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

The American Prospect, a liberal site that has long pushed progressive economic policies, used a Wednesday article about the inflation report to highlight a different policy endeavor of Mr. Biden’s: his effort to go after unexpected “junk” fees added to the cost of things like hotel stays and ticket purchases. Mr. Biden has listed the push as a key pillar of his effort to bring down consumer prices.

Americans have been “feeling that they’re getting less and paying more and even being duped in the process,” wrote David Dayen, the site’s executive editor. The Biden administration’s focus on hidden fees was an example of Mr. Biden “speaking to this discontent.”

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MeidasTouch, a liberal media network, celebrated Wednesday’s news in an article with the headline “Biden Economy Does Better Than Expected (Again).”

In the article, Aaron Parnas argued that the economy under Mr. Biden has “repeatedly defied all expectations,” pointing to strong job growth and easing inflation. He also said Mr. Biden had done a better job than former President Donald J. Trump, who most voters say they trust more on the economy.

“​​President Biden inherited an economy that was bleeding jobs due to the failures during the Trump administration,” Mr. Parnas wrote.

Conservative, Liberal Outlets Blast Biden’s Immigration Order For Very Different Reasons

President Biden’s immigration policies are a frequent target of conservative and liberal media outlets, often mirroring criticisms from Republican and Democratic elected officials. The reaction to his executive order on Tuesday, which limits asylum at the U.S.-Mexico border, was no different.

Conservative media outlets criticized the policy as being too lenient and accused Mr. Biden of being slow to address what they see as a crisis. Some made misleading claims about the order.

Liberal outlets gave less attention to the news. Those that did give it significant coverage repeated a long-held frustration among progressives with Mr. Biden’s approach to the Southern border, saying the executive order was harmful to migrants and denouncing it as a version of the policies favored by former President Donald J. Trump.

Here is how a few of those outlets covered the news:

Mr. Biden’s executive order prevents migrants from seeking asylum at the border when crossings spike, one of the most restrictive U.S. immigration policies enacted by a Democrat.

But that didn’t go far enough for many conservative outlets, including Breitbart, which blanketed its site with stories that criticized Mr. Biden’s policies. Since he entered office in 2021, Mr. Biden has been repeatedly accused by the right-wing site of causing an influx of migrants crossing the Southern border.

The site’s headlines this week emphasized the particulars of Biden’s order, which cut off asylum access at the border starting on Wednesday. The order will lift if daily crossings drop to below 1,500 for a period of time, but will come back if they rise to 2,500.

“Joe Biden Issues Executive Order Permitting 2,500 Migrant Encounters at Southern Border,” read a misleading Breitbart headline on June 4. The executive order does not permit anyone to enter the country illegally; it sets new restrictions on asylum.

Another story published Tuesday highlighted the outlet’s longstanding promotion of the false far-right notion that liberal elites wants to “replace” white Americans, saying that the administration is “looking to add one migrant to the U.S. population for every two American births.”

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Credit...The Daily Caller

The Daily Caller, a conservative website that has also consistently criticized Mr. Biden’s immigration policies, argued he could have done more to tackle this crisis earlier in his term.

In a story with the headline “Biden Unveils Immigration Executive Order After Months Of Insisting There’s Nothing He Could Do,” the site’s White House correspondent, Reagan Reese, said Mr. Biden “denied that he had the ability to take action on the border, instead blaming Congressional Republicans for the ongoing migrant crisis.”

Jason Hopkins, a contributor for the site, said the Biden administration had “made a concerted effort to undo many of the immigration policies” of his predecessor. (Mr. Biden did roll back many of Mr. Trump’s immigration rules at the start of his presidency, but has since shifted to a more conservative approach.) Mr. Hopkins also highlighted both liberal and conservative immigration experts who condemned Tuesday’s order.

Mr. Biden’s order does resemble a 2018 policy from Mr. Trump, which also sought to bar migrants from seeking asylum and which was blocked by a federal judge. That fact was not lost on some liberal outlets and commentators, who criticized Biden for following the previous administration’s approach on immigration.

Democracy Now, a progressive online radio and TV program, devoted 15 minutes of its hourlong show on Wednesday to Mr. Biden’s executive order, which host Amy Goodman said would “continue to codify the far right’s anti-immigration agenda.”

John Washington, who wrote a book contending for open borders, argued on the show that Mr. Biden’s tack to the right on immigration was not likely to succeed politically.

Democrats have “tried to lean right, concede their principles, and expect that they’re going to gain some political capital. But it doesn’t work,” Mr. Washington said.

The Raw Story, a liberal outlet that is frequently critical of Mr. Trump and Republicans, devoted little coverage to Mr. Biden’s executive order. On Tuesday, the site’s homepage led with an unrelated article about Joe Scarborough, the MSNBC host, holding back laughter on his show as he reacted to a Fox News interview with Mr. Trump.

An article on Tuesday that did touch on the order highlighted Mr. Biden’s break with the progressive wing of his party over the order. It ran with the headline, “Biden in hot water with AOC,” referring to Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat.

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Credit...Mother Jones

An article for Mother Jones, a liberal website, kicked off with a quote from a proponent of freer borders: “Biden is now fully embracing Trump’s policies as his own.” In the article, reporter Isabela Dias pointed out that Mr. Biden’s order came at a time when border crossings had fallen since December.

“Despite calls from advocates and immigration experts to espouse an openly pro-immigrant agenda,” Ms. Dias wrote Thursday, Democrats and the Biden administration have “gradually ceded ground to the right.”

Conservative Media Blasts Trump Verdict as a Sham as Liberal Media Celebrates, Mostly

Partisan news media’s reaction to the historic conviction of former President Donald J. Trump was swift.

Conservative websites and commentators blasted the verdict as a sham, intensifying and escalating the attacks on the prosecution and the judge that they lobbed throughout the seven-week criminal trial in Manhattan. Several websites misleadingly referred to the trial as “rigged” and “corrupt.”

Liberal outlets, though, couldn’t quite agree on what to make of the verdict, even if they broadly welcomed it. While some mocked Mr. Trump for the potential loss of his right to vote in November’s election, several outlets also called the verdict “unsatisfying” and potentially “irrelevant.”

Here is how a selection of outlets covered the same verdict:

The Daily Wire, a conservative site, was not shy about its disapproval of the verdict. “Trump Found Guilty. Pray for the Republic,” was the headline of one story by Ben Shapiro, the site’s founder and editor emeritus.

Mr. Shapiro, who went live on his podcast after the verdict, said it was “a terrible day for the country” and that “this was the weakest of the charges” against the former president. Mr. Shapiro went on to claim falsely that Mr. Trump was “convicted of crimes that don’t exist.” Mr. Trump was convicted of falsifying business records related to so-called hush-money payments to the porn actress Stormy Daniels.

Yet Mr. Shapiro and his guest Michael Knowles said the verdict would serve Mr. Trump well in the November general election.

“I think you are going to see an enormous consolidation around Trump, certainly people who were lukewarm on Trump,” Mr. Shapiro said, including supporters of the former candidates Nikki Haley and Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida.

The Daily Wire’s Matt Walsh, a columnist who supports Mr. Trump, went further, calling on him to weaponize the presidency for retribution should he win the 2024 election. He “should make and publish a list of 10 high-ranking Democrat criminals who he will have arrested when he takes office,” Mr. Walsh wrote on X.

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Credit...The National Review

A conservative outlet that has often been critical of Mr. Trump, The National Review’s homepage headline on Thursday night read, “Yes, It Was Rigged.” In the article, editor in chief Rich Lowry misleadingly claimed every level of the trial was biased against Mr. Trump, including the judge’s handling of the case and the prosecution’s presentation of the charges. He said it was all aimed to hurt Mr. Trump’s chances in the November election.

In an editorial titled “The Horrendous Trump Verdict” posted Friday morning, the editors of The National Review blamed Alvin Bragg, the Manhattan district attorney, for “selective prosecution,” suggesting without evidence that he targeted Mr. Trump and relied on “an embarrassingly compliant” judge.

Mr. Bragg, they wrote, became “the first prosecutor in the history of the country to abuse his office in hopes of damaging an opposition presidential candidate ahead of a national election.”

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Credit...The New Republic

The liberal outlet The New Republic celebrated the verdict with stories that mocked Mr. Trump’s bad day in court. “Convicted Felon Trump Forced to Beg Most Embarrassing Ally for Help,” was the headline of one article, which joked that Mr. Trump would need the help of Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, where Mr. Trump has primary residency, to vote in November. (It is unclear whether he will be able to vote — if he is in prison at the time of the election, he would not be.) Another called Mr. Trump’s discussion with reporters after the verdict a “wild rant.”

But the writer Alex Shephard said the outcome didn’t go far enough, in an essay titled “Why Trump’s Historic Conviction Is So Unsatisfying.” Mr. Trump was not on trial for his worst misdeeds, Mr. Shephard wrote, and he remained the polling leader in the November election against President Biden. That was unlikely to change, Mr. Shephard said, because so many Americans supported Mr. Trump through all of his previous scandals.

“It is hard to imagine that a conviction — even a felony conviction — on paying hush money to an adult film actress would change that,” Mr. Shephard wrote.

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Credit...The Nation

The Nation, a left-leaning website, cheered Mr. Trump’s conviction with an essay headlined “The Greatest Liar of All Time Gets a Criminal Conviction,” which also referred to Mr. Trump as the “disgraced, twice-impeached former president.”

But in another essay on the site, with the headline “Why the Election Is the Trump Verdict That Really Matters,” the publisher and former editor Katrina vanden Heuvel wrote the trial’s outcome would be immaterial should President Biden lose to Mr. Trump in November.

“The verdicts in the cases will be irrelevant,” she wrote. “If he is defeated, that verdict will do more to inform the future behavior of presidents than any of the court cases.”

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Conservative Media Fixates on the Judge in Trump’s Criminal Trial

Conservative media has been preoccupied for weeks with Justice Juan M. Merchan, the New York judge presiding over the Manhattan criminal trial against former President Donald J. Trump.

Mr. Trump has long attacked Justice Merchan and his family in social media posts and on his campaign website. But Justice Merchan did not earn a starring role in conservative media until after he issued a formal gag order against the former president, forbidding attacks against various people involved in the trial, including jurors and witnesses.

Since then, right-wing commentators, most prominently on Fox News, have condemned the judge nearly daily in their coverage of the trial. They have painted Justice Merchan’s rulings as biased, decried small donations he made to Democrats in 2020 and suggested that his connection to his daughter, a Democratic political consultant, made him unfit to oversee the case.

Liberal outlets have focused less on Justice Merchan, instead centering their coverage of the trial on the charges against Mr. Trump and the figures in his orbit. But some smaller outlets have praised Justice Merchan for clamping down on Mr. Trump.

Here’s how it has played out:

In addition to covering the trial as straight news, Breitbart has devoted significant attention to what Republicans see as Justice Merchan’s pro-Democratic bias.

Justice Merchan donated $35 to groups that supported Democrats during the 2020 election, including $10 to a group called “Stop Republicans.” That, along with his daughter’s role as a consultant for Democratic candidates, has prompted Mr. Trump to call on the judge to recuse himself. (A state ethics panel last year dismissed a complaint against Justice Merchan with a warning over his donations. Justice Merchan has denied any wrongdoing.)

Matthew Whitaker, a former acting attorney general under Mr. Trump, wrote for Breitbart on April 23 that Justice Merchan should recuse himself so “we can put the blindfold back on Lady Justice.” He added that Justice Merchan was “profiting handsomely” from the trial because of his daughter’s work on the campaigns of prominent Democrats.

Jesse Binnal, a lawyer for Mr. Trump, misleadingly described Justice Merchan as “a Biden donor” on an April 16 episode of Breitbart News Daily, the site’s political podcast. He also misleadingly claimed that the judge had a “vested financial interest” in the case.

“How can a judge be a donor?” asked Mike Slater, the host of Breitbart’s podcast. “Seriously, how is that allowed?”

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Deroy Murdock, a conservative commentator, took a similar tack when he wrote for The Washington Times on April 29. Justice Merchan, he said, “belongs in the Conflicted Jurist Hall of Fame.” His daughter’s political work and even small donations, Mr. Murdock wrote, were evidence of bias that Democrats would find unacceptable if Hillary Clinton were on trial.

“Imagine her judge donated $15 to Mr. Trump in 2016 and $10 each to the Conservative Turnout Project and Stop Democrats,” Mr. Murdock wrote.

Cheryl Chumley, an editor and opinion writer for The Washington Times, wrote on May 1 that Justice Merchan had fined Mr. Trump for “exercising his God-given, constitutionally protected free speech rights.”

Michael Popok, a lawyer and host of a podcast from MeidasTouch, a liberal media network, said that Judge Merchan could have been harder on Mr. Trump.

“The only reason Donald Trump isn’t cooling his heels on Rikers Island while the trial is going on, and gets to sleep every night at Trump Tower, is because Judge Merchan allowed it,” Mr. Popok said in a YouTube video on April 16.

On March 26, when Judge Merchan issued a gag order that barred the former president from attacking witnesses, prosecutors and jurors, he “let Trump know right away that his tolerance for foolishness is at an end,” wrote Mr. Filipowski, a lawyer and the editor in chief of MeidasTouch.

Walter Einenkel, a writer for the progressive news site, wrote in Justice Merchan’s defense on May 13. The judge, Mr. Einenkel argued, was not “conflicted” as conservatives said because he had been appointed to his job by a judge who had been appointed by a Republican.

After Mr. Trump said he was “not allowed to testify” because of the gag order against him, Mr. Merchan said the order did not prevent him from testifying. On May 3, the writer Mark Sumner lauded the judge’s response to Mr. Trump.

“The idea that Trump isn’t allowed to testify is a ridiculous reading of Merchan’s order,” Mr. Sumner wrote, with a headline that called Mr. Trump’s claims an “absurd lie.”

Conservative and Liberal Outlets Belittle Michael Cohen as He Testifies Against Trump

The country’s liberal and conservative media outlets seemed to agree on one thing this week: Michael D. Cohen, the government’s star witness in its case against former President Donald J. Trump, was worth belittling.

But they made that argument in far different ways.

Conservative outlets painted Mr. Cohen, a former lawyer for Mr. Trump, as a traitor to the conservative cause. Liberal outlets focused on Mr. Cohen’s testimony about how he would do anything to impress Mr. Trump.

But there was also one bigger difference about their coverage of Mr. Cohen’s testimony. Most of the liberal news outlets gave prominent coverage to what he said at the trial, the first criminal trial against a former president. Numerous conservative outlets downplayed much of what he said in court.

Here is how it played out:

MSNBC has given extensive coverage to Mr. Cohen’s testimony on both its TV channel and its website. The coverage has often acknowledged that Mr. Cohen was an imperfect messenger for details about the hush-money case, in part because he spent more than a year in prison for crimes that included lying to Congress. But most commentators still suggested his testimony hurt Mr. Trump’s case.

Mr. Cohen paid $130,000 to the porn star Stormy Daniels to stop her from telling the public about an affair with Mr. Trump. Prosecutors say Mr. Trump then reimbursed Mr. Cohen and falsified records to disguise the payments as legal expenses. Mr. Trump has denied the affair and any wrongdoing related to the payments.

Hayes Brown, an opinion writer for MSNBC, wrote on its website that Mr. Cohen was a “known liar,” and was a “terrible person to rely on for the prosecution’s case.”

But, Mr. Brown wrote, prosecutors did not shy away from Mr. Cohen’s checkered past, which “ironically makes him more credible as a witness.”

Lawrence O’Donnell, on the prime-time show “All In,” remarked that Mr. Cohen had seemed much more measured than usual in his appearances in the courtroom. His demeanor on the stand, Mr. O’Donnell suggested, signaled Mr. Cohen was telling the truth. Mr. Cohen was attempting to “save what could be left of his life by the simple course of telling the truth to prosecutors,” Mr. O’Donnell said.

The popular liberal podcast “Pod Save America” devoted the first 10 minutes of its Tuesday episode to the trial. The host Jon Favreau said Mr. Cohen was “not exactly an honest broker.” Another host of the show, Dan Pfeiffer, said he was a “sleazy goofball.”

But the hosts, both of whom had worked in the Obama administration, said Mr. Cohen’s claims were ultimately substantiated. Mr. Favreau said Mr. Cohen came off as credible to reporters in the courtroom.

“It seems like there’s a document for everything that Michael Cohen testified, or at least some corroborating evidence,” Mr. Favreau said.

Like MSNBC, Fox News has given Mr. Cohen considerable coverage online and on TV. Much of it has argued that he is not a credible witness and that his testimony ultimately damaged the prosecution’s case.

Greg Gutfeld, a Fox News host and commentator, said of Mr. Cohen, “No one can take this guy seriously.”

“It’s hard to poke holes in Cohen’s testimony because it’s all holes and no cheese,” Mr. Gutfeld said on “The Five.” “It’s just air.”

Standing outside the courthouse Tuesday morning, Jon Glasgow, a reporter for Newsmax covering the trial, said that “we haven’t really seen a lot” from Mr. Cohen’s testimony to suggest Mr. Trump would be convicted.

Greg Kelly, a Newsmax anchor who often praises Mr. Trump, said he had not read Mr. Cohen’s testimony. Instead, he characterized Mr. Cohen as someone who craved public attention: Mr. Cohen, he said, is “not a smart man” and “loves this kind of moment.”

“Sorry, there’s something really wrong with this man,” Mr. Kelly said Monday on “Greg Kelly Reports.” On Tuesday, he called Mr. Cohen a “pathetic clown.”

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The cover of The New York Post from Tuesday, May 14, 2024.Credit...New York Post

The day after Mr. Cohen first appeared on the stand, The New York Post’s front page made no mention of him at all. Instead, it focused on a falsehood in a book by Jen Psaki, President Biden’s former press secretary. In her new book, Ms. Psaki wrote that Mr. Biden did not look at his watch until after a ceremony for dead U.S. soldiers in 2021. (He had, in fact, checked it during the ceremony.)

The Post ran a full-page image of Mr. Biden looking at his watch during the ceremony, with the caption “Yes, on his watch.”