NBC Turned D-Day Eve Ceremony Coverage into a Trump Bashing Session

Nicholas Fondacaro | June 5, 2019
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***To read the full blog, please check out the complete post on NewsBusters***

On the eve of D-Day, President Trump joined Queen Elizabeth and other world leaders on the southern shore of England to mark the beginning of the 75th anniversary of the allied invasion of Normandy. The Wednesday event was a somber occasion, with Trump reading from President Roosevelt’s prayer from that day. But NBC Nightly News seemed to grow bored with the seriousness of the event as they shifted gears a little less than halfway through the report to bashing Trump over a few controversies.

Anchor Lester Holt seemed to hint at the switch during his opening introduction at the top of the show:

On the eve of the 75th anniversary of the D-Day invasion, President Trump joined allied leaders just across the English Channel in Portsmouth, England, the starting point for the D-Day invasion. The emotional ceremony commemorating one of history's most daring military operations. And comes as President Trump made news about why he never pursued military service. Just one of the headlines from a wide-ranging interview on British TV.

The report by chief White House correspondent Hallie Jackson began seriously enough. The network showed Trump reading from the prayer as they swapped between audio of him and FDR. But the tone shifted after a clip of Trump appearing to talk to a WWII veteran flashed on the screen. “The President himself never joined the military, receiving draft deferments during Vietnam,” she chided.

In fact, NBC and Jackson spent more time slapping Trump over these controversies than they did promoting Wednesday’s event with the President. They had one minute, 21 seconds set aside for the ceremony and one minute, 31 seconds allotted for the controversies.

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