Attorney General William Barr said Sunday that much of the national media is telling “a lie” about “peaceful demonstrators” in American cities and ignoring the riots and looting.
“I’ve been appalled at this violence because it’s happening right out in the street,” Barr told Fox News’ “Life, Liberty & Levin.”
“Anyone with eyes can see what’s happening. They see the violence. They see these groups of agitators and their black outfits, their helmets and their shields which, incidentally, have the hammer and sickle on them most of time,” Barr said in reference to the symbol of Soviet communism.
Barr described rioters throwing rocks at police and this activity not being reported by “any of the national news. You don’t see it on the networks, you don’t see it on the other cable stations and yet you hear about these peaceful demonstrators — so it’s a lie.” (RELATED: Rioters and Looters Hit Chicago After Man Reportedly Hit In Shootout With Police)
“The American people are being told a lie by the media.”
Barr wondered why leaders of the Democratic Party “are not coming out and condemning mob violence” during his testimony Tuesday to the House Judiciary Committee in late July.
The attorney general said the so-called deception has its roots in journalists relating a “narrative” instead of a straight story. “I knew we were in trouble because ordinarily they suggest there is no objective truth, there’s no real story of what happened, it’s just everyone has their own narrative … that doesn’t really correspond to objective truth, but it’s our narrative. We have a narrative, you have a narrative.” (RELATED: Poll: 77% Of Americans Concerned About Spike In Urban Crime — Blame Protests And Unemployment)
A federal officer points his less-lethal weapon into the crowd while dispersing a protest against racial injustice and police brutality in front of the Mark O. Hatfield U.S. Courthouse in the early hours of July 30, 2020 in Portland, Oregon. (Photo by Nathan Howard/Getty Images)
When asked if much of the media has become so ideological that it is not reliable, Barr said, “it’s reliable for being partisan nowadays.” He said there is too much media concentration in the hands of too few corporations and “they will all pretty much toe the party line.”
The attorney general said it was helpful when Fox News selected clips from various media outlets to demonstrate “how they use exactly the same phraseology and same talking points and that’s what you see. It’s become extremely monolithic and it’s wedded in many ways to the Democratic Party — it’s a partisan press largely.”
Protests and riots in Portland have resulted in tens of millions of dollars in damages to the community, according to the Portland Tribune.