Lawless on Covington Catholic Students, MAGA Hats, and Whether BuzzFeed will be Vindicated
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
University of Virginia Professor of Political Science Jennifer Lawless joined GoLocal News Editor Kate Nagle on GoLocal LIVE, where she spoke to media recently being in the media -- and more.
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Lawless discussed BuzzFeed’s story claiming Michael Cohen was instructed by President Donald Trump to lie to Congress — which she said was only partially refuted by special counsel Robert Mueller — and how the media was quick to malign students from Covington Catholic High School at the “March for Life” rally in Washington, D.C. before more of the story came out.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLAST“The BuzzFeed story was obviously insane,” said Lawless. “If it was true, It was explicit grounds for impeachment. It’s hard to imagine a more obvious case for obstruction of justice that instructing someone to lie to Congress."
“When the special counsel came out and said there are at least some pieces of this that are not accurate, then the news media had basically no choice but to start telling stories about themselves and how this can happen,” said Lawless. “I think that BuzzFeed might be in the end vindicated but it doesn’t matter — it’s going to be too late [and] it plays into Donald Trump’s narrative of ‘fake news’.”
Lawless also spoke to the coverage of the Covington High School students at the recent March for Life rally, some of whom were wearing “Make America Great Again” hats — and recent comments by former Democratic Presidential candidate Bernie Sanders calling Trump racist as well as those in Rhode Island calling MAGA hat wearers racist.
“I think it’s a perception [that is] being driven by the President himself — it’s not that all Republicans are racist, it’s not the case all conservatives are racist, but we’ve gotten to the point where many Democratic members of Congress and presidential candidates [Bernie Sanders] just literally said yesterday the President is racist,” said Lawless. “So when you’re associating yourself with his slogan — which is “Make America Great Again” and not necessarily the Republican Party or conservative movement — those two things become synonymous in a lot of people’s minds.”
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