Media

CNBC Host Appears To Physically Squirm While Calling Out ‘Mainstream Media’ On Hamas Hostage Swap

CNBC's Joe Kernen appeared to physically squirm Monday while calling out

[Screenshot CNBC]

Brianna Lyman News and Commentary Writer
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CNBC’s Joe Kernen appeared to physically squirm Monday while calling out “mainstream media” for its coverage of the Israeli-Hamas hostage swap.

The terrorist organization Hamas has released dozens of hostages in exchange for Palestinians who were held in Israel for a myriad of crimes. The initial agreement with Hamas was Israel would receive 50 hostages, women and children, while giving Hamas 150 Palestinian prisoners. The prisoners are held on convictions of attempted murder, violence, throwing stones and “harming regional security,” according to CNN.

Kernen appeared visibly disgruntled with the way the exchange was being portrayed by mainstream media and others who have tried to paint a better light on Hamas for releasing hostages.

“Hamas released an additional 17 hostages yesterday that included a four-year-old American girl. That brings the total number of Israeli and foreign hostages released now to 58. But remember there were originally 240 people that were taken on October 7th. And a fourth exchange is expected today. International mediators are trying to extend the cease-fire that began on Friday. Israel said it would agree to an extra day of cease-fire for every 10 additional hostages released,” Kernen said. (RELATED: Video Shows First Group Of Freed Israeli Hostages Crossing Into Egypt)


“You can see the benefit of taking hostages,” Kernen said. “You get a lot of negotiating power after, as horrific as October 7th was, hopefully not too much. I don’t know. I hope people don’t suddenly think, ‘Wow, what a humanitarian and generous organization we’re seeing here’ because it is trickling out and they’re getting about three times as many Palestinian prisoners released for every hostage that they took. Now the Palestinian prisoners, they were convicted of crimes and other things that ended them up in jail versus slaughtering  people … and taking hostages back. But they’re negotiating. The longer it lasts, the more people can sort of, jihadists can exit. You are seeing a lot of opinions wavering now as we knew we would as the mainstream media gets involved with, you know, we have to consider the collateral damage but that can allow Hamas to become resurgent.”

Mainstream media outlets have repeatedly come under fire for their portrayal of the Israel-Hamas war, including Reuters and The New York Times.

The Times’ portrayal of one of the released Palestinian prisoners garnered scrutiny from readers on social media after the newspaper included a photo of Israa Jaabis with the headline, “A disfigured woman whose case has become well known is among the Palestinians released.” Jaabis became disfigured after she reportedly detonated a bomb in her car when police pulled her over. The bomb was initially meant to be used to kill Israelis, according to Israeli authorities. She was subsequently arrested and convicted.

Reuters issued a correction to one of their tweets after referring to a group of released Israeli hostages as “soldiers,” even though the individuals released included civilian teens, moms and even toddlers.

“CORRECTION: Hamas releases 13 more Israeli hostages and four foreign nationals to the Red Cross in a second exchange,” Reuters tweeted. “We will remove a previous post that incorrectly mentioned soldiers.”