Mark Halperin Criticizes The Press’ Trump Coverage While Ignoring His Failure To Live Up To The Same Standards

Halperin: “The Press Is Going To Have To Do A Lot Of Soul Searching”

Written by Media Matters Staff

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Bloomberg’s Mark Halperin challenged the press "to do a lot of soul-searching about its failure to pursue a lot of these Trump stories,” noting that many of Trump's scandals “didn’t get enough coverage.” Halperin’s critique of the press ignores his own failure to meet this standard himself, particularly in his recent interview with Trump.

Previously, Halperin declared that journalists are “obligated” to keep pushing Trump until he releases his “full [tax] returns” just like every nominee has done for decades. Despite this stance, Halperin completely ignored the subject of Trump’s tax returns during an October 26 interview with the GOP candidate, asking Trump if he considered all of his speeches “great” and noting that Trump had “redefined how candidates talk about polls.”

Halperin has come under intense criticism this election season for acting as a bonafide Trump apologist, including brushing off Trump’s reluctance to accept the election results as a concern of “elites,” criticizing The New York Times for responding to Trump’s threat to take legal action against them, portraying Trump’s request of Russia to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails as bad behavior by both Clinton and Trump, and defending Trump’s racist attacks against American judge of Mexican descent, Judge Gonzalo Curiel, by declaring “Mexico isn’t a race.” From the November 1 edition of Bloomberg’s With All Due Respect:

JOHN HEILEMANN (CO-HOST): My questions to you are the following: is there any there there? And if so, will it matter in the outcome of this presidential race?

MARK HALPERIN (CO-HOST):Well, there’s no doubt that after this election, the press is going to have to do a lot of soul-searching about its failure to pursue a lot of these Trump stories over the course of a year and a half. There’s a lot of stories that didn’t get enough coverage, that should have gone from print to television.