Wednesday’s PBS News Hour featured dueling Democrat-Republican interviews on the government shutdown, from House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Rep. Mike Haridopolos (R-FL). Can you spot the difference?
Co-anchor Geoff Bennett: The vice president, J.D. Vance, said today that the White House is willing to have a conversation about health care so long as the government is funded first. What do you make of that? And how do you respond to the charge that Democrats are the ones making the demands here, so it's Democrats who are forcing this shutdown?
Jeffries' answers were delivered on autopilot:
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: Republicans control the House, the Senate and the presidency….
Bennett actually pinned some blame on the Democrats, a rare occurrence in corporate media coverage of government shutdown spats.
Bennett: When you say this is a Republican shutdown, historically, it's Democratic and Republican votes that are needed on spending resolutions to get them across the finish line. How are you pinning this directly on Republicans, when it's Democrats who are withholding their votes on a clean resolution?
Jeffries, again on autopilot, responded with the same ridiculousness.
Jeffries: Well, Democrats actually are in the minority in the House and the Senate, and, of course, Donald Trump is the president….
Bennett mildly addressed the “deepfake” video circulated by Trump showing Jeffries in a Mexican sombrero and stereotypical bushy mustache.
Bennett: I have to ask, while we have you, what did you think when you first saw that A.I.-generated deepfake video, the sombrero video that the president posted earlier this week? There was another one he posted last night. And what does the mere existence of those videos say about the political climate we're in right now?
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries: I thought it was deeply unserious….
Bennett wasn’t overly gushing but certainly wasn’t challenging or hostile to his Democratic guest, unlike his co-anchor Amna Nawaz, who aggressively pressed GOP Rep. Mike Haridopolos of Florida in the next segment. Nawaz was obsessed with Trump’s threats of permanent layoffs in the federal bureaucracy, going on a repetitive rant about layoffs, a word Nawaz employed six times, like a mantra, to ward off Republican points.
Some of Nawaz’s “questions” to Haridopolos.
- ....I know you were on a call earlier today with the OMB director, Russ Vought. It's been reported that there could be mass layoffs within one to two days. Is that what you heard? What should we expect on this?
- So what did Russ Vought say about those layoffs?
- So what about those layoffs? What was the message that you got from Russ Vought on this?
- Congressman, in this shutdown now, will there be layoffs? What did Russ Vought say?
She also took a harder line than Bennett had on the silly fake video posted by Trump of Rep. Jeffries.
Nawaz: We have also seen the president continue to post these racist videos with a sombrero superimposed on Leader Jeffries' head. Why does he keep posting those? What's the message there?
Haridopolos: I think the president's always doing things to change the debate. And what he's always tried to do is have a little fun in politics. We have seen all kinds of pushback back and forth.
Nawaz: Congressman, how is that fun? What's the joke there?
Where was the alleged “joke” found by the media in Kimmel’s nasty lie about Charlie Kirk’s killer?
The following evening Bennett hosted Shalana Young, director of the Office of Management and Budget under Biden -- the most one-sided, pro-Democrat segment of all, no surprise considering the sole guest. Check out Bennett's questions to Young.
- : ….So President Trump and Russ Vought, his budget director, they are warning of permanent layoffs, mass firings connected to this shutdown, a dramatic break from past practice. What do you make of the way Republicans are rewriting the rules here?
- So the shutdown gives them no extra authority. Would the firings, mass firings, even be legal?
- ….What I hear you say is that this budgeting piece is in many ways a pretext for a power grab.
- On the other hand, what lessons can Democrats learn from the way Republicans are playing hardball here?
