MS NOW White House correspondent Jake Traylor joined Tuesday’s Ana Cabrera Reports for a textbook example of how aspiring reporters should not do their job. Within the span of only one minute, Traylor would display an obvious hypocrisy on the usefulness of anecdotal stories and fail to fact-check President Trump on Sunday’s St. Paul church storming, because it was Traylor who needed to be fact-checked.
Traylor was on to discuss Trump’s reaction and state of mind when it comes to all that is going on in Minnesota when he declared, “We're continuing to get different, you know, citizens sending in different images and videos of ICE agents acting in ways that appear to be unlawful, or at least quite confusing. And so for the president, in a lot of ways, it continues video after video to be difficult things to defend.”
Alluding to a recent Trump Truth Social post, Traylor continued, “We do know, though, that the president himself is watching a lot of this take place. Early this morning, the president posted about a recent protest that took place in Minneapolis at a church saying that the protesters, the president, alleged they were paid agitators, which is, of course, as you know, a baseless claim. But he said that they should be not just put in jail. But he said some of them should be kicked out of this country in entirety.”
Fact-check: professional activist groups such as Black Lives Matter Twin Cities, Black Lives Minnesota, and the Racial Justice Network were all there on Sunday. Some of their leaders were present at the church, and they are, in fact, paid quite well.
However, Traylor doubled down while also claiming that anecdotal evidence is suddenly not as compelling when it details the left’s misdeeds, “So we continue to see the president paying close attention here. But I will just note, Ana, this continues to be a baseless claim. Many of our great reporters on the ground there have talked to individuals. We're continuing to hear these anecdotal stories, none of which come from any individuals who have been paid whatsoever, for the most part, overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, Ana.”
Traylor wants to claim that anecdotal evidence of ICE agents “acting in ways that appear to be unlawful, or at least quite confusing” is a big deal, but any evidence of bad or criminal behavior from the other side is to be ignored because they have been “overwhelmingly peaceful.” The fact that the church stormers still likely broke the law by disrupting the service despite not punching anyone is something Traylor also does not seem to care about.
Here is a transcript for the January 20 show:
MS NOW Ana Cabrera Reports
1/20/2026
10:22 AM ET
JAKE TRAYLOR: We're continuing to get different, you know, citizens sending in different images and videos of ICE agents acting in ways that appear to be unlawful, or at least quite confusing. And so for the president, in a lot of ways, it continues video after video to be difficult things to defend.
We do know, though, that the president himself is watching a lot of this take place. Early this morning, the president posted about a recent protest that took place in Minneapolis at a church saying that the protesters, the president, alleged they were paid agitators, which is, of course, as you know, a baseless claim. But he said that they should be not just put in jail. But he said some of them should be kicked out of this country in entirety. So we continue to see the president paying close attention here. But I will just note, Ana, this continues to be a baseless claim. Many of our great reporters on the ground there have talked to individuals. We're continuing to hear these anecdotal stories, none of which come from any individuals who have been paid whatsoever, for the most part, overwhelmingly peaceful protesters, Ana.
