No Jimmy Lai? No Uighurs? NBC Trumpets American Representing China at the Olympics

One day after the pro-democracy former newspaperman Jimmy Lai was sentenced to two decades behind bars by the brutal, Chinese Communist Party-controlled Hong Kong regime, NBC’s 3rd Hour of Today celebrated Tuesday one of the totalitarian regime’s chief figures of soft power, American-born, educated, and resident Eileen Gu for five minutes of fawning over her gregarious personality and success on the slopes, including at the Milan-Cortina Olympics.

Of course, they never asked Gu about anything political (including her criticism of President Trump) or the brutality of the country she represents.

The three co-hosts began by highlighting the silver medalist in slopestyle, freestyle skiing was, in the words of co-host Craig Melvin, “American-born Eileen Gu, who competes for her mother’s home country, China.”

Co-hosts Dylan Dreyer and Al Roker first asked about the Olympics, specifically how she felt on her silver medal-winning run and how she’ll be preparing for the freestyle skiing competition in the halfpipe.

The second half of the interviewed trumpeted her global status. Melvin said he recalled meeting her at the last Olympics in which she grabbed “two gold, one silver” and, along her skiing career, she has “graced the cover of Vogue, Time, you’ve been a runway model,” scored “dozens of endorsement deals as well and for folks also may know the fact you almost had a perfect score on the SAT as well.”

They then let Gu go on for the rest of the interview about her life at Stanford and Oxford, continuing to “explore the intersection of femininity and power of self-expression” in fashion, and what she brought with her to stay in the Olympic Village.

Gu was bubbly and came off like an All-American girl with the co-hosts nodding along (click “expand”):

MELVIN: I mean, how has your life changed over the last four years, Eileen?

GU: Yeah, I mean, for one, I started college, so that has been so much fun going to Stanford. I also did a term abroad at Oxford, so I fully lived on campus at Oxford, and that was just such a special experience. Additionally, I’ve worked in fashion since I was 14, so continuing to do that and explore the intersection of femininity and power of self-expression has just been just as fulfilling. And you know, I like to joke that I picked my three favorite things in the world — skiing, education, and fashion and somehow made it a job. I don’t know what job title this is, but I feel like the luckiest girl in the world to be able to do all three at the same time, so I’d just like to say I’m a college student who happens to be really athletic.

ROKER: That’s an understatement.

DREYER: I also — I also wanna get your take on the Olympic Village there. I know you actually packed a rice cooker and a milk frother. Are, are those things you typically put in your bag?

GU: Yeah, I do travel with some oddities, I will say. I’m kind of a picky eater, sleeper situation, so I bring all the things I need with me on the road. Sometimes I’ll leave home for three, four, five, six months at a time, and so maybe I’ll be wearing heels and a black tie dress one night on a red carpet, and then the next day I’m training and I’m on an airbag and everything’s wet and you’re filled with water and sweat and it’s disgusting, and then the next day I’m on snow and then. Maybe it’s going to be summer, maybe it’s going to be winter, so I need to pack so many things in the Olympic village. I brought with me a rice cooker because I like to eat rice at every meal and I was worried there wouldn’t be rice at breakfast, but I’m happy to report that Italy, the food game is on point. The reputation absolutely holds. They do have rice at breakfast and all of the other wonderful things that make Italy a food paradise have all met expectations, if not exceeded. So, rice cooker has not seen a lot of use, but I had it just in case. I also have a milk foamer. I just like foamed milk. I’m not great with a lot of coffee, so it’s, like, a flavored coffee flavored foamed milk. I also have a bunch of books, journals I like to read. I won a World Cup two weeks ago in Switzerland and I haven’t gone home since, so my trophy is actually this big block of stone. It’s like 10 pounds, but I can’t leave it behind, so I just have this, like, massive rock with me as well, but it’s been so much fun. The Olympic Village is fantastic.

Dreyer was delighted by all of this: “Eileen, you are such a delight. Thank you so much for joining us this morning. I don’t know how you’re gonna pack up to eventually go home at some point, but good luck in the rest of the game.”

“And — and Eileen, next time, can you, could you come out of your shell because — yeah, you’re just so laid back,” Roker sarcastically added.

Conservative strategiest Matt Whitlock took notice of how NBC writ large has been promoting Gu as though she was on Team USA:

“Can't imagine a worse voice on this topic than an athlete who threw away her American citizenship for Chinese Communist Party endorsement deals. Does Eileen Gu have any criticism for Xi Jinping for genocide, slavery, and arresting dissenters,” he added in another post.

NBC definitely showed it lacks the courage to stand up against communist China. Thankfully, others in the press and politics have.

“Because the press is obsessed with asking Olympians about American politics, a welcome change could be asking Eileen Gu, the US skier competing for the CCP, about China giving Jimmy Lai a death sentence,” said Real Clear Politics White House correspondent Philip Wegmann.

Hudson Institution’s Michael Sobolik also took Gu to task for her comments blasting President Trump for criticizing American skier Hunter Hess stating he has “mixed emotions” about representing America at the Olympics in 2026 (i.e. Trump is President):

New York Post reporter Lydia Moynihan blasted Gu by quoting a tremendous piece in The Economist pointing out Gu has been “happy to criticize the US — the country that gave her the platform to become a global superstar” while not “say a word about China, an actually repressive regime” where speaking out against the government “takes real courage” and risk more than “lucrative endorsement deals.”

On that theme, a few others noticed the same:

National Review’s Jim Geraghty wrote about this on Monday morning (click “expand”):

Few human beings have achieved as much in their first two decades of life as Eileen Gu. Born in San Francisco to an American father and a first-generation Chinese immigrant to the U.S., Gu was raised in the Sea Cliff neighborhood in San Francisco, one of the wealthiest in the city. She attended the private prep school San Francisco University High School — current tuition, $68,090 — and accepted to Stanford University, where she is currently a junior majoring in international relations. She got a 1580 on her SATs. Along the way, Gu proved to be an absolute prodigy in freestyle skiing. In early 2019, she represented the United States in the 2018–19 FIS Freestyle Ski World Cup. Objectively gorgeous, she also is a professional model, represented by IMG models. She has appeared in the Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue.

She is, by every measure, an American success story. Well, every measure except one.

In 2019, she changed her national affiliation for international competitions and started representing the People’s Republic of China.

(....)

Chinese law bans dual citizenship; it appears the Chinese regime made an exception for her.

When it comes to Hess, Geraghty wondered “how many of” those praising Hess’s mild Trump criticism “even know who Eileen Gu is.”

Gu can claim interest in human rights and specifically women’s rights, but she has no room to lecture or speak out with any substance given her conscious choice to represent one of the most brutal regimes on the planet, founded by one of the most evil souls in human history, Mao Zedong.

Going back into the NewsBusters archives, the elite media were obsessed with her back in 2022 during and after the last winter Olympics in Covid-locked-down Beijing.

Along with the ESPY’s giving her the award for Best Athlete, Women’s Action Sports, Time trumpeted her as one of the world’s most influential people in 2022.

Our Tim Graham dedicated one of his syndicated columns in February 2022 to NBC and the rest of the American press promoting Gu. In one piece Graham highlighted, the Associated Press event went as far as to argue criticism of her was....racist.

To see the relevant NBC transcript from February 10, click here.