The Slatest

Today in Conservative Media: No Fans of Cory Booker

Defense secretary nominee James Mattis at his confirmation hearing on Thursday.

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A daily roundup of the biggest stories in right-wing media.

Conservative media continued to denounce the provenance, content, and publication of a document alleging that President-elect Trump collaborated with the Russian government during his campaign because he was being blackmailed.

On the SiriusXM radio show Breitbart News Daily, former U.N. ambassador John Bolton, whom Trump considered for secretary of state, questioned whether President Obama’s administration could have been behind the document’s release. “It must have leaked out of somewhere,” Bolton said. “Maybe it was the Obama White House. What a surprise that would be, right? But this was somebody’s effort, I think, to impugn Trump’s character.”

The Daily Caller criticized the hosts of The View for “attacking Donald Trump over the unsubstantiated Russian report.” The site also ran a post titled: “BuzzFeed Could Be in Legal Trouble for Publishing Trump Doc.”

On Fox News, Sean Hannity slammed the “alt-radical left press” for covering the document. He said, “The media has continually proven they are incapable of treating President-elect Donald Trump or any Republican fairly. What we saw from CNN and BuzzFeed should serve as a warning to the incoming Trump administration.” Hannity ended the segment by advising Trump to “ignore these people,” saying they “don’t deserve” journalistic access.

In other news:

The confirmation hearings for Trump’s nominees continued Thursday, and conservative media focused on the Democrats’ roles. National Review called Sen. Cory Booker’s and Rep. John Lewis’ testimony Wednesday at Jeff Sessions’ attorney general hearing  “impotent attacks” against the nominee. The post said: “Lewis and Booker used Sessions’s confirmation hearing to, in effect, equate modern conservatism with the explicit racism of Jim Crow.”

During the Thursday proceedings, both the Daily Caller and Breitbart zeroed in on Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand’s question to defense secretary nominee Gen. James Mattis. Gillibrand asked Mattis whether he thought LGBTQ people and women were weakening the military. He responded, “Frankly, senator, I’ve never cared much about two consenting adults and who they go to bed with.” The Daily Caller’s headline said: “Mattis Shuts Gillibrand Down on LGBT Military: I Don’t Care Who People ‘Go to Bed With.’ ” Breitbart’s read: “How Gen. James Mattis Answered Democrat Questions on Gays and Women in the Military.” The Daily Caller published another post about Mattis’ confirmation hearing titled: “People Can’t Stop Talking About the Woman Sitting Behind James Mattis at His Hearing Today.” The post said, “all eyes were on the blonde that was sitting behind [Mattis’] right shoulder” and included tweets describing her as “pretty,” “gorgeous,” “cute,” and “hot.”