Democratic strategist James Carville demanded more "slanted" media coverage of Donald Trump during his podcast on Thursday and called out the executive editor of The New York Times for saying the paper intended to "cover the full range of issues" in the presidential campaign, not just those favorable to one side.
"Now you have Joe Kahn, the new editor or publisher, whatever he is at The New York Times, saying, ‘We’re just got to cover this down the middle. We’re going to cover what it is.’ I don’t think that’s the role of the news media at a time when the entire Constitution is in peril," Carville said during his "Politics War Room" podcast, which was first reported by The Daily Caller.
"I don’t have anything against slanted coverage. I really don’t, I would have something against it at most other times in American history, but not right now. F--- your objectivity. The real objectivity in this country right now is we’re either going to have a Constitution or we’re not," Carville said.
Kahn pushed back on the idea the media needed to "abandon its central role as a source of impartial information" because Trump is considered a threat to democracy during an interview with Semafor in May. He said it wasn't the job of the Times to become "an instrument of the Biden campaign."
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"Everything else, from Hunter Biden’s gun application to Judge Merchan’s, I don’t know, $35 contribution, to all of the bulls--t that the professional center feels like they got to put out. I can’t tell you that these are bad people. They’re extremely naive people who have no idea what’s at stake in this election," Carville said.
"So I think we need slanted coverage, more slanted coverage and I think we got to recognize the threat that this guy and the MAGA, not just him, the entire MAGA movement, from [Justice] Alito and Trump on down is a serious, it's a clear, serious and present danger to the existence of the Constitution in the United States. And I mean that," he continued.
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Carville, who has routinely sounded the alarm over the Democratic Party's chances in 2024 and Biden's re-election campaign, previously told Biden and his team to stop complaining about the New York Times' coverage of him, arguing it was a "waste of time."
Al Hunt, Carville's podcast co-host and a former reporter at the Wall Street Journal, pushed back on Carville's use of the term "slanted," arguing, "we need fair coverage, and not false equivalency."
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During Kahn's interview with Semafor, he said democracy, an issue the Biden campaign has focused a lot on, was not a top issue for voters.
"It’s our job to cover the full range of issues that people have. At the moment, democracy is one of them. But it’s not the top one — immigration happens to be the top [of polls], and the economy and inflation is the second. Should we stop covering those things because they’re favorable to Trump and minimize them?" he said.
"We become an instrument of the Biden campaign? We turn ourselves into Xinhua News Agency or Pravda and put out a stream of stuff that’s very, very favorable to them and only write negative stories about the other side? And that would accomplish — what?"
Kahn's comments triggered a debate about what role the media needed to play in the upcoming November election, as Democrats and some pundits continue to sound the alarm about democracy being at stake.
"The NYT has publicly stated over the years that it supports the bedrock principles of American democracy and is opposed to authoritarianism. And, over the last several months, its reporters have indicated that Donald Trump, if elected, would rule with a blatant disregard for democratic norms, akin to an authoritarian. Which means, if one does the math, that The NYT as an institution should by default oppose what Trump's candidacy embodies," CNN's Oliver Darcy wrote.
"But it is worth asking: If newsrooms are pro-democracy, and if their reporting indicates one candidate is opposed to democratic values, how can they feign ignorance on the 2024 race?" he continued.
Fox News' David Rutz and Brian Flood contributed to this report.
