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MSNBC's Joy Reid Angry Over Coverage of Govt. Shutdown: Media Spin on Behalf of Republicans 'Predictable'

Joy Reid / Getty Images
Joy Reid / Getty Images
January 22, 2018

Left-wing MSNBC host Joy Reid on Monday appeared aggravated about the media's coverage of the end of the government shutdown, tweeting there was "nothing so predictable as media spin in favor of Republicans."

Senate Democrats, led by Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.), forced a government shutdown on Friday when all but five of them voted against a continuing resolution to fund the government through Feb. 16, due to it not addressing the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, which provides legal protections to immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.

After a weekend of pointing fingers—Republicans dubbed it the "Schumer Shutdown" while Democrats called it the "Trump Shutdown"—33 Democrats effectively ended the shutdown after less than three days by passing legislation to fund the government through Feb. 8, getting in return a promise by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R., Ky.) to hold a separate vote on immigration legislation before then.

Mainstream and left-wing outlets like the Associated Press, the Washington Post, VICE, and the Daily Beast characterized the deal as a "cave" by Schumer and his caucus.

Reid, who heavily pushed the "Trump Shutdown" narrative over the weekend and whose weekend "AM Joy" program is devoted almost entirely to attacking the GOP and the Trump administration, did not take kindly to the coverage.

https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/955513198517637120

Liberal activists were furious over the end of the shutdown, ripping into Schumer and the Democrats for trusting McConnell and not holding the line.

Reid was not one of them, however, insisting the compromise was a victory because the agreement took the Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) off the table as a part of negotiations. She did not note that Democrats could have gotten the same agreement Friday and not put CHIP's status in doubt in the first place.

https://twitter.com/JoyAnnReid/status/955503649614192641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Ffreebeacon.com%2Fpolitics%2Fliberals-enraged-senate-dems-reach-deal-end-government-shutdown%2F

As for Reid's contention that the media spins in favor of Republicans, recent studies show that journalists who identify as Democrats—such as Reid—outnumber those who call themselves Republicans by 4-to-1, 91 percent of the mainstream networks' coverage of Donald Trump over the past year has been negative, and journalists offered far greater donations to Hillary Clinton than to Trump in 2016.