July 27, 2016

On July 24, 2016 I watched Face the Nation on CBS. The host is John Dickerson. The only guest for this week was President Barack Obama. This week’s panel consisted of Ron Brownstein, Nancy Cordel, Ramesh Ponnuru, and Jamelle Bouie.

For this week they only interviewed President Obama. They started off the interview by asking if terrorism was a growing threat like Donald Trump claims, or if it is something that we shouldn’t worry about. President Obama replied that it was always a threat but currently it isn’t a growing one. The next object of focus was about the presidential candidates for this upcoming election. Though his opinion, like anyone else’s on this subject, was slightly biased by party. He claimed that Hillary Clinton is the most prepared candidate for presidency in history. Personally I don’t believe either candidate is prepared, and that both are mainly going to obtain votes due to them not being the other candidate. Later the remark that Trump is only popular due to him fanning fears of terrorism, which may be one of the reasons but not the main reason. John transitioned the interview’s topic onto what would be good qualities for presidency and how does feel about having to leave office soon. He replied that personally he believes three great qualities needed for presidency would have to be teamwork, discipline, and a great love for the people. He claims you need the ability to work well with others due to the job requires multiple people and is impossible to do anything without teamwork. He explained discipline is necessary due to problems or disruptions randomly occurring and you and your team needs to be able to keep calm and solve the disruption. Lastly he explained they need to love the people and the country to keep carrying through and remember why you are doing this in the first place. He claims that you can get lost and almost forget why the job is worth it. After the explanation John asked what was the advice his predecessor gave him. President Obama cracked a joke and replied always use hand sanitizer because you will catch a cold from touching everyone else’s hands. He then advised even though you will never be able to do everything you want to do; you alway need to try your best. Next was the panel. Their section wasn’t too long this week. Ron started off the discussion by stating that this election will divide the country into transformation and restoration. He claims the transformation group will be the people voting for Hillary Clinton who stands for transforming this country into a new diverse one, and Donald Trump’s voters who stands for America’s past legacy and greatness. Next was Nancy Cordel.  She pointed out that for the main portion of the speeches at the Republican convention were bashing Clinton. She claims that she believes they bashed Clinton due to Trump switching approaches and talking mainly about his goals to improve America’s cities conditions. Due to this most of his supporters who joined him to attempt to rid themselves of their fears of terrorism or an economic depression didn’t stand completely behind Trump and decided to speak about what they could think of, meaning Hillary Clinton. Personally I think that’s what they spoke about because a  main portion of his voters are voting for him due to him being Republican and not Hillary Clinton. Ramesh was next and just bluntly stated that he believes Trump is full of himself and should be preparing instead of partying. I personally think that both candidates are just focusing and exploiting that fact that they aren’t the other candidate.

Due to this blog I’ve started to understand the “interesting” qualities of this election and the amount of terrible scenarios that are now able to happen. I am now hoping that one of the two can get their act together and run a country better than it is already ran. If not another country or group may just take advantage of our situation.

July 17, 2016

On July 17, 2016 I watched Fox News. The host is Chris Wallace. The guests were Trump’s campaign adviser Paul Manafort and RNC Chairman Ryan Priebus. The panel for this week was Brit Hume, Reporter  Julie Pace, News Anchor Bret Baier and, Columnist Kirsten Powers.

Paul Manafort was the first person interviewed. It started with Chris questioning Paul about Governor Mike Pence being chosen to run with Trump as his Vice President. Paul claimed he thinks Pence is the perfect pick and that he balances and supports Trump’s style completely Now people from both parties are questioning this choice, but Trump claims he is the perfect choice due to him being involved in politics for years, it reassures the GOP establishment about all of Trump’s “going solo” claims, and that it will help reassure social conservatives. NBC News claimed that while Trump discouraged colored voters to vote for him; Pence discourages (sorry for those who are about to get offended) gays and women. The Democrat’s main problems with Pence will be about his views on gay rights and abortion ideals. NBC News claims that Pence was a good choice for Trump due to his ability to help Trump in the Midwest, which holds a decent amount of swing states. The next topic was about the Republican Convention. The guest for this topic was Ryan `Priebus. The interview opened up with Chris asking Ryan if he is worried about the “enthusiastic” and destructive supporters of Donald Trump. Ryan replied, “No, every convention has its fair share of chaos.” Chris followed up asking about the conventions appearance of being “disorganized”. Ryan replied that the Republicans convention seems to be disorganized due to the Democrats releasing the plans for their convention weeks before it happened. However he claimed that the convention is fully organized and planned. Later in the interview Ryan was questioned about Trump’s choice of Pence being chosen for the vice president position. Ryan claimed that it was an excellent decision, and balances most of Trump’s weaknesses. To conclude the interview, Chris points out that the Republican party needs to work hard to obtain the Rust Belt’s votes. Ryan and a huge portion of Trump’s supporters believes that Trump can and will advance and expand the amount of states voting for the Republican party. Next was the group of pundits. Their major topic was what are the pros and cons of each candidate. The panel agreed that the major deciding factor of voting will be what party is the candidate from. Everyone from the media that evaluated Trump’s Vice President choice of Pence claims that Pence is an odd yet safe choice for Trump’s campaign. Julie pointed out that the main problem Trump will have with Pence being his running mate is the fact that now Trump will have to answer the social issues due to Pence being a conservative.

At the end of this show I realized how much influence a president’s choice has on their country. Before watching the show I didn’t realize how, even before office, a candidate’s choice on something like who their running mate will be would cause news stations all over the country to focus in on that one choice.

July 10, 2016

On June 10, 2016 I watched Face the Nation on CBS. The host was John Dickerson. This week’s guests were Mayor Mike Rawlings, Secretary J. Johnson, Officer William Bratton, NAACP President Cornell Brooks, Representative Elijah Cummings, and Former Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The pundits were Chief of Police Terrence Cunningham, Director-Counsel of NAACP Sherrilyn Ifill, Wesley Lowery from Washington Post, and CBS News Correspondent Jeff Pegues.

The main topic of discussion this week was violent protest against the police all across the country. The first guest was Mike Rawlings. Mike claimed that he hopes Dallas can set an example to the rest of the country by not holding the Black Lives Matter group, as a whole, responsible for all of the acts of hostility against the police. The next guests were Secretary Jeh Johnson and William Bratton. Their interview began with the host asking Johnson about the shooting in Dallas. Johnson responded, “It is a time to come together, to heal, and to mourn. Though we have to remember that the shooter should not reflect upon the whole community and that use excessive force should not reflect upon law enforcement.“ John Dickerson proceeded to ask William Bratton on how do the police officers all across the nation feel about the current events. William replied that there is a lot of pressure on the officers currently, and it is constantly improving to fix the problems we are having currently. Some of the examples were training to improve and lessen the use of force, diversity in the police force, and are working towards closing the gap between the community and the police force. When asked about if they suspected a tragedy like the one in Dallas he replied, “No, they were attempting to plan for the worst and hope for the best, but Dallas was beyond anyone’s speculation.” Personally I just can’t believe a U.S citizen attacked and killed policemen, whom have protected this country and died from a person they were attempting to protect. The next guest was the president of the NAACP, Cornell Brooks. He started off by saying that racial relations have gone down but are not where they should be. He then stated that an African American male is more likely to be shot than his white counterpart. Now at first I was intrigued by this statement, and proceeded to do some research. I found that his claim of police using lethal force on African Americans due to race was incorrect. Through this research I found that there was a disproportionate amount of nonlethal force used against African Americans, but there was not an increase in the amount of lethal force being used due to race. However I did enjoy watching him due to his straight forwardness and conviction. Next on the show was Elijah Cummings. During his brief interview he brought up a very important point that the others barely touched on. Elijah mainly talked about how the police and the community both need to work on their relationship with each other due to the fact that the police can’t do their job without the community and the community will not be able to retain order without the police. The next person to be interviewed was Rudy Giuliani. John Dickerson started off the interview by asking what did Rudy think about Newt Gingrich ironically stating, he is Caucasian, white Americans do not understand the dangers of being African American. Rudy replied that he agrees and that both communities need to work together to solve this problem. Rudy claimed that he believes that African Americans need to be aware of the fact that instead of being wary of the police shooting, which he claims happens rarely, they need to instead be wary of thugs and criminals. He claims that thugs and criminals that may live near them kill every fourteen hours, opposed to the random incidents of police shootings. Rudy ended his interview by claiming, “... Callings themselves Black Lives Matter is inherently racist, and that black lives matter, white lives matter, Asian lives matter, and Hispanic lives matter. The fact that they call themselves Black Lives Matter is anti-American and racist due to them focusing only on the black lives.” The next session was with the pundits. The first one was Terrence Cunningham. Terrence started the discussion by claiming the Dallas police force was something every police force should strive to be. He pointed out that during the protest they not only controlled order over the duration but they also guarded it. He claimed that when the first shot was fired the police ran to protect the protesters, not knowing that they themselves were the targets, and used themselves as human shields to protect the protesters. Sherrilyn Ifill argued that the police do not take responsibility for their actions like in Baton Rouge and Minnesota. Wesley commented on Rudy’s earlier statement about the target and pressure being on the police. Wesley claimed that the media and the people focus on the police shootings instead of the murders due to the police being an extension of the government and the thought of any part of the government killing its citizens were a crazy one. Personally while I do understand his view I do have to disagree about blowing it out of proportion due to the fact that it hinders the police from doing their job without conflict, which causes these situations. Jeff then commented that he believes that the current police targeting and accusations are caused by the lack of trust with the police by the community.

I think John Dickerson did an average job on hosting only due to the fact that he remained silent for a huge portion of the show, but he did an excellent job on choosing the guests. Secretary Jeh Johnson and William Bratton did a great job on the show by each providing a view of the pro-BLM(Black Lives Matter) and the police force. Cornell Brooks did a great job on the show he completely believed everything he said, even though his statement was wrong, and proceeded to go straight to the point. Rudy Giuliani was a great guest. He provided new views and interesting ideas. The pundits were great and cooperated to prove their points and used what the previous pundit said to explain their own view. Though by the end of the show I am now skeptical about how much order the police will be able to maintain due to all of the tension in the air raised by the NAACP and the BLM.

July 6th, 2016

On July the 3rd, 2016 I watched Fox News. The host during this session was Ainsley Earhardt. The guests were Xavier Becerra and Devin Nunes. The pundits were Brit Hume, Charles Lane, Scott Brown, and Heidi Przybyla.

The first guest was Xavier Becerra. The main subject of discussion during this interview was the investigation on Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Xavier believes that all of the emails information was not classified as top secret until weeks after she sent the email. The main percentage of the democrats see this incident as a huge misunderstanding, and she won’t make the mistake again. However on the opposite side of the spectrum most of the Republican party believes she should be in jail for treason. Ainsley transitioned the conversation to the Benghazi tragedy for the last few moments of the interview. Xavier, a Democrat, firmly believed that Clinton couldn’t do anything to stop the tragedy from happening. After the interview the pundits, all Republican, came on. They all agreed that Hillary Clinton should be directly responsible for the deaths at Benghazi. After the discussion Ainsley introduced Devin Nunes. Devin’s interview mainly talked about the terrorism threat in the United States. He started exclaiming we can’t call the threat by any other name besides radical Islamic terrorist. He said that Democrats need to stop just calling them terrorist and call them by what they are. Personally I don’t think it matters if they leave the two words out due to adding them  will just be offensive a whole religion.

This analyzation of the two parties emphasized to me the difference between the two parties. In other shows, ones that aren’t mainly composed of one party for their pundits, they argue over matter that were off topic, and only end arguing when they are taken off the show.

June 26, 2016

On June 26, 2016 the first show I watched was Meet the Press on NBC. The host was Chuck Todd. The guest for this week’s show were David Miliband, Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, Paul Manafort, and Tom Kaine. The pundits were Doris Goodwin, Helene Cooper, Kimberly Strassel, and Chris Cillizza.

The first guest to be interviewed was Britain’s former Secretary of State of Foreign Affairs David Miliband. David Miliband was brought in to discuss Brexit. His opinion about Brexit is that Britain should stay. He thinks that Britain should have not left due to relations to other countries will most likely take a turn for the worst. After David’s interview the pundits came on for a brief discussion. During this discussion the talked about  Brexit and how it relates to the US. Kimberly expressed an opinion of which she believes President Obama overstepped his boundaries and shouldn’t have been involved. They all seemed to lean towards Hillary Clinton and said when Trump was in Scotland he should have been in Britain like Hillary Clinton. They started talking about how Trump cares more about his businesses than the country. Chuck proceeded to cut the discussion short and move on to his next interview with Paul Manafort. Paul Manafort’s interview was focused on Trump. However he never answered questions about Trump directly. Instead he ironically tried to divert the attention by claiming Clinton’s whole campaign Ads were diverting attention to Trump’s mistakes. It’s ironic due to him moving the conversation to this, and the fact that Trump’s campaign Ads do the same thing. After Paul’s interview Chuck interviewed Tim Kaine. Chuck started the interview by asking about the ammo clip limitation. He replied that he completely agrees with the limitation. Chuck then asked if he was qualified for his upcoming position, and he replied that he believes no one is prepared until they’re in the position. In my opinion Chuck Todd is a great  host due to him asking questions constantly and ability to keep to conversation to continue. David Miliband was a good guest and was respectful during the whole interview. Paul Manafort wasn’t a good guest due to him dodging questions by declining to answer them or bringing up Hillary Clinton. For Tim Kaine I had to disagree with a lot of the points he brought up, but throughout the interview he was polite. For example when he claimed limiting ammunition clips will help the gun issues, but all it is going to cause is have someone buy to magazines. For the pundits they were all average except Doris Goodwin. She was optimistic and enthusiastic throughout the show, and did a great job participating in the discussion.

Overall the show demonstrated how events like Brexit in Britain can affect the whole world.

For the second show I watched State of the Union on CNN. The host is Jake Tapper.

This week’s guest were Bernie Sanders and Bob Corker. The pundits were Jan Brewer, Martin O' Malley, Ken Cuccinelli, and Nina Turner.

The first interview was with Bernie Sanders. It began with the question of who he planned on voting for during the election. He hesitated and then replied Hillary Clinton. When asked about the hesitation he stated all he wants is for Donald Trump to lose. After some more discussion about his voters and who they may vote for; Jake cut the interview and moved on to Bob Corker. Jake started it off by asking him what he thought about his thoughts on all of the Republicans not supporting Trump. He never answered the question and instead replied I hope we can turn this situation to benefit the public. The pundits were unproductive. Instead of discussing orderly they were just arguing among themselves. Martin and Jan argued between themselves, and Ken and Nina argued between themselves. The only good that came out of the pundits was seeing the outcome of both parties anger for the other party. Now in my opinion Jake Tapper was a bad host during this show due to his inability to keep the guest on the topic at hand. Bernie Sanders was a good guest and provided an insight on the Democrats situation. Bob Corker was a terrible guest due to him not answering a single question during the whole show. The pundits personally need to get a hold of themselves due to their inability to sit and wait for their turn to give their opinion.

This week’s show elaborated on the rift between the two parties and how the opposing party will do anything to justify the opposite party from gaining power. After seeing the pundits reactions on this show I’m in doubt about if the parties will ever be able to coexist peacefully.

June 19, 2016

On June 19, 2016 I watched State of the Union on CNN as my first show. John Dickerson is the host. The guests were Donald Trump, Attorney General Loretta Lynch, Senator Dianne Feinstein, and NRA CEO Wayne Pierre. This week’s pundits were Fran Townsend, Michael Morell, Ruth Marcus, and Michael Gerson.

The main topic was about the shooting in Florida and what we can do about it. Donald Trump was the first person interviewed and believes we should start checking Mosques and maybe start profiling any Muslims in or coming into our country. However I’m not sure if it would be beneficial to check the mosques due to the chance of cooperation will be lowered due to it. The second guest was Attorney General Loretta Lynch, She believes the Florida shooter was not a part of ISIS and was a lone wolf. She does however believe he read ISIS information and was influenced by their beliefs. She believes the government should have the power to deny any gun sales that they suspect the customer to be affiliated any way to terrorism. The second guest was Senator Dianne. She agrees that the government should be allowed to deny the selling of guns to people the suspect that are related to terrorism. The next guest was NRA Ceo Wayne Pierre. Wayne agrees completely with Donald Trump on the situation with ISIS. The pundits discussion was focused on the shooting, but transitioned into how the presidential candidate’s beliefs would have affected the shooting. Fran Townsend was the first to comment. She believes that the shooter is mentally ill, and that is the reason why he killed everyone in the club. She claims that banning assault rifles and large ammo clips will help in the future to limit these events. Michael Morell was the next one and believes that the shooter is alone. He claims these events are happening due to ISIS knowing they can’t win through war, and therefore sends terrorist into our country as retaliation. Ruth Marcus transitioned the discussion into the presidential candidates by claiming Clinton is better suited for president due to her knowing what to say about the shooting. He also claims there will never be a perfect solution to the gun violence but we can limit it down immensely. The final pundit claims Trump failed to show what is needed to be president and will cause an uprising in the Republican party in the next two weeks. My personal opinion on the host is he never really asked the guests any outstanding questions and let the guests lead the conversation, and personally I don’t think that’s what a host is meant to do. Donald Trump, in his brief moment of time, claimed we should start checking mosques and start profiling Muslims. For me I believe that checking the mosques is not a good decision because if we do how can we expect them to warn us if there is someone wanting to commit an act of terrorism. Attorney General Loretta seemed to be on the ball and never hesitated when answering questions. Wayne LaPierre was very blunt when answering questions except when he was asked about Donald Trump and gun control. Senator Dianne was an adequate guest in my opinion. She never fully grabbed my attention or agreement with anything she claimed. The pundits were adequate they didn’t show a lot of opinion. They were almost unanimous in their thoughts and opinions.

In the end the show essentially was deciding whether or not no profile any Muslims that come in or are in our country, and trying to decide how to prevent another shooting.

The second show I watched on June 19, 2016 was Fox News, It is hosted by Chris Wallace. The guests were Attorney General Loretta Lynch, and Senator Jeff Sessions. This week’s pundits were Brit Hume, Amy Walter, George Will, and Juan Williams.

The main topic during this week’s show was the Florida shooting and how to deal with ISIS. The first interview was with Attorney General Loretta Lynch. Loretta was discussing a plan that would give the government the power to stop a person from being able to buy a gun even if they don’t fall into the 10 situations that are already in place. Jeff Session was the next person to be interviewed. He claimed Obama needs to step down from presidency if he doesn’t want to try to defeat ISIS, people on the terrorist watch list can’t buy guns, and he implied U.S soldiers stole money that was supposed to be used to fix Iraq. The pundits agreed on the matter that Trump isn’t suited as well for presidency as Clinton, and debated on how to beat ISIS. Brit Hume claims we need to beat ISIS through war to get rid of them. Juan Williams then argued with him that war will not stop ISIS, and that the government will need to take a different approach to solve this problem. Chris asked about the plan to allow the government to deny a gun sale to a person suspected to be a terrorist. George Will replied that he believes it is taking their rights away. At the end of the show Amy emphasizes why she doesn’t want Trump to win presidency, To me the host was average he never really asked any spectacular questions. Loretta seemed to be honest and believed what she said, and she never hesitated when answering. Jeff Sessions seemed to be a less charismatic version of Donald Trump due to his responses being very similar to Trumps. The pundits were good and discussed their topics well.

At the end this show showed me that when there are problems or threats in the world; there will always be powerful people arguing over what to do.

June 12, 2016

This week’s political show was This Week on ABC. It aired on June 12, 2016 and has George Stephanopoulos as the host. This week’s guests were Secretary Hillary Clinton and Senator Bob Corker. The pundits were Paul Krugman, Grover Norquist. E.J. Dionne, Matt Dowd, Sara Fagen, and Roland Martin.

The main topics were the presidential candidates and the economy. Hillary Clinton was the first to be interviewed. When Clinton was asked about the problem with her email usage during her term as Secretary of State. she froze up and started going on about how the rules on the topic weren’t clear. During Hillary Clinton’s interview George asked what she thought about raising gun sales tax by 25%. She then proceeded to dodge a direct answer, and claimed we should use “sensibility” with gun rights. The next interview was Senator Bob Corker. When asked about Trump being racist Bob Corker attempted to divert attention onto Hillary Clinton’s email scandal. Bob claimed that he does not support the Muslim ban threat, but does believe in building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants. He also claims that we need to raise the tariffs to help boost the economy. Throughout his interview he mostly answered his questions directly and cleanly. However Clinton never really answered her questions directly and just slung insults at Donald Trump. The pundits, E.J. Dionne, Matt Dowd, Sara Fagen, and Roland Martin, talked about the election for their part of the show. They seemed to all lean towards Clinton for president, but they all agreed on Gary Johnson might be able to change the tide of the race due to pulling votes from Trump or Clinton. Paul and Grover discussed the economy and its effects on the election. Paul and Grover both came from different perspectives on who will win the election and provided a good look on both parties opinions on the economy. Now starting off with the host. George is an excellent host, he asked questions that kept his guest on their toes and seemed to not favor one side over the other. To me Hillary Clinton was a terrible guest on the show she dodged most questions and just insulted the Republican party. Bob Corker was an adequate guest he didn’t dodge too many questions but he also didn’t fully support his candidate as much as he claimed. Roland, Matthew Dowd, E.J Dionne, and Sara Fagen gave a new outlook to the information the show gave me. Paul Krugman and Grover Norquist gave good information about the economy but they argued more than explained, in my personal opinion.

All in all Clinton needs to stop dodging questions, Trump needs to be open to a little bit of change, and in the end it may just come down to who we don’t want to be in office.

June 5, 2016

On June 5, 2016 I watched Meet the Press and State of the Union. Meet the Press airs on NBC on Sundays at 8 A.M. It is hosted by Chuck Todd. The guests were Garry Johnson, Bob Costas, Jim Brown, Bryant Gumbel, and Senator Mitch McConnell. The Pundits were Representative Donna Edwards, Andrea Mitchell, Ron Fournier, and Lanhee Chen. State of the union airs on CNN every Sunday at 8 A.M. It is hosted by Jake Tapper. The guests were Donald Trump, Former secretary of state Hillary Clinton, and U.S Senator Bernie Sanders. This week on State of the Union there were no pundits.

On Meet the Press they mainly discussed the legendary fighter Muhammad Ali, who died two days before the show aired. On the show Jim Brown who was a friend of Muhammad Ali, Bryant Gumbel an  American T.V journalist, and Bob Costas, who is writing a book about Muhammad Ali. They were discussing Muhammad Ali’s life this week. They did really well on discussing the topic, and none of them could think of a negative thing to say about the legend. They all agreed he was an extremely prideful and well liked, but was a man who fought for what he believed in to the death.  The pundits had similar views on Muhammad and all had a fond memory of the fighter.

Chuck Todd did a good job on hosting and asked decent questions throughout the show. Gary Johnson has a better mix of opinion from both parties then the other candidates. Bob Costas and Bryant Gumbel both discussed their subjects very well and didn’t hesitate to answer on questions. Jim Brown seemed insightful when he did speak, he didn’t speak very much. Senator Mitch McConnell was a figure that I didn’t enjoy watching. This was due to the fact that he never answered Chuck’s questions, and tried changing the focus. As for the pundits between the four of them their opinions all differentiated. I didn’t mind listening to them and I enjoyed hearing all of their opinions.

Now as for State of the Union. They mainly covered on the upcoming primary. The interview on Donald Trump was mainly focused on the lawsuit on Trump University. During the interview Trump said the judge’s race, he is hispanic but was born in the U.S, influenced his decisions on the case. This makes him seem pretty racist but he claims since he is building a wall to keep out illegal immigrants from Mexico it isn’t racism. Meanwhile Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders have teamed up against Donald Trump to attempt to take him out of the election. They were all slinging insults at each other. Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump seemed to realize that most of their voters won’t vote out of choice but out of the lack of options. An example of this is Donald Trump’s new advertisement of the Clinton’s mistakes and scandals. I believe Jake Tapper is a decent and funny host, and my opinion on the guests is Donald Trump is crazy, Hillary is a crook, and Bernie Sander’s ideas would only work in a perfect world.

From what I’ve experienced from these two shows are that Muhammad was a great man and will never be forgotten from this generation, Donald Trump may be racist, Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump are fighting like three year olds, and no one except Bernie Sanders considers himself in the race for presidency.