BROADCAST BIAS: Networks ooze with sympathy to anyone who opposes Trump

Everything the broadcast networks report about politics revolves around fervent opposition to President Donald Trump. If you watch them daily, you feel very certain that Trump has put the economy in a “tariff meltdown,” he’s ruined our reputation around the world, and he’s running roughshod over poor, innocent immigrants. 

Now that their celebrated deportee Kilmar Abrego Garcia looks more undeniably like a wife beater who was actively employed in human trafficking of other illegal immigrants, the networks need a new sympathetic victim.  

They found one in Mohsen Mahdawi, a 34-year-old U.S. permanent resident who was born and raised in a refugee camp in the West Bank who, as a student at Columbia, led pro-Hamas protests as they chanted “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free,” which means they want the nation of Israel destroyed. 

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In April, ICE took him into custody and prepared him for deportation. When a judge overruled them and Mahdawi was released, DHS Assistant Secretary Tricia McLaughlin argued: “When you advocate for violence, glorify and support terrorists that relish the killing of Americans, and harass Jews, that privilege should be revoked, and you should not be in this country.” 

But CBS reporter Lilia Luciano celebrated Mahdawi, as he proclaimed his “freedom signals a light of hope” and, after being asked what he “felt” when he learned he’d be released, he added he “was reassured in my heart of the belief that justice will prevail and the justice system is functioning.” Mahdawi quoted Martin Luther King Jr., as if his heroes in Hamas are role models of nonviolence. 

Luciano failed to revisit the interview Mahdawi gave to “60 Minutes” for a December 2023 segment on campus protests. Mahdawi supported Hamas by arguing “When somebody is hurting you, when you see this person is being punched in the face and this feeling, it is: You now feel my pain.” 

CBS’s Bill Whitaker pushed back: “But this Hamas attack wasn’t a punch in the face. This was a horrible terror attack.” Mahdawi claimed he wasn’t justifying the slaughter of 1,200 people, but he then said he “can empathize” with Hamas. “To empathize is to understand the root cause, and to not look at any event or situation in a vacuum. This is, for me, the path moving forward.” 

CBS is now ignoring that court documents show Mahdawi allegedly told a gun shop owner he would work at his shop for free, and that he, “had considerable firearm experience and used to build modified 9mm submachine guns to kill Jews while he was in Palestine.” But he’s presented positively as a peaceful protester. 

On April 29, NPR anchor Leila Fadel also promoted Mahdawi, and asserted there was no evidence Mahdawi used “threatening rhetoric,” since “from the river to the sea” chants calling for the destruction of Israel is somehow not defined as “threatening.” He “finds peace in meditation,” NPR oozed. Mahdawi’s lawyer, Luna Droubi, claimed that “Mahdawi has been very vocal in his opposition to antisemitism.” So much for the “killing Jews” allegations.  

The networks also find Trump’s victims among his former employees. In her “Meet the Press” interview, host Kristen Welker pressed the president about an apparent Justice Department investigation of Miles Taylor, the former DHS bureaucrat who was granted a much-promoted anti-Trump op-ed in The New York Times as “Anonymous” and then came an “Anonymous” book deal. 

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“Last month, you directed your attorney general, Pam Bondi, to review two people who you perceive to be your political adversaries,” Welker weirdly claimed, as if you can’t be sure Taylor has been all over television trashing Trump. “You told me in December that you would not direct the Justice Department to investigate your political foes.” These TV anchors pretend Biden’s Justice Department didn’t spend every minute prosecuting Trump and his supporters. 

They followed up by interviewing Taylor on “NBC Nightly News.” Legal reporter Laura Jarrett — the daughter of Obama chief of staff Valerie Jarrett — clearly constructed the interview to elicit sympathy for Taylor, presenting him as an endangered whistleblower, not an attention-seeking opportunist who may have divulged classified information as he capitalized on his “anonymous” revelations. 

On April 29, NPR anchor Leila Fadel also promoted Mahdawi, and asserted there was no evidence Mahdawi used “threatening rhetoric,” since “from the river to the sea” chants calling for the destruction of Israel is somehow not defined as “threatening.” 

“The 38-year-old says he’s now receiving a barrage of threats,” warned Jarrett. Taylor claimed “My wife has to read online about people saying that they’ll put me in front of a firing squad. We were told by security experts to go update our last will and testament.” 

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Jarrett wasn’t going to imagine what people say on the internet about Trump and how some rooted for his assassination. Taylor was allowed to play the hero who won’t be silenced: “What I worry about is that they will try to use this tactic, this bludgeon of the bully pulpit of the presidency to go shut people up.” 

ABC, CBS, and NBC all use their “bludgeon of a bully pulpit” to intimidate conservatives and Republicans and seek victory for the Democrats. Anyone opposed to Trump will be lionized as Trump is routinely demonized. 

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