On Sunday, NBC Meet the Press host Kristen Welker offered a perfect Exhibit B to her Exhibit A of partisan double standards. Two weeks ago, Kristen Welker lunged to help Democrat Senate candidate Abdul el-Sayed with prompts: “I want to give you the chance to address some of the attacks that were lobbed on the debate stage.” It was about his associations with the Egyptian Islamists called the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed lamely denied his family had any ties, and Welker let him give a campaign speech of 479 words.
On Sunday, she did the opposite with his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. She went after him in defense of El-Sayed, and when Rogers called her out on it, she ludicrously proclaimed “I don’t have a position.” Everyone in politics knows better. Her position aligns with the Democratic Party talking points on El-Sayed.
NewsBusters Managing Editor Curtis Houck and evening/Sunday-news monitor Jorge Bonilla assessed the state of midterm coverage with just a week and a day to go.
In a related interview, El-Sayed got combative in an increasingly feisty interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier after questions over plans for universal health care and the candidate’s possible ties to the Muslim Brotherhood. El-Sayed demanded an end to those questions: “I’m not interested in whatever you pull out in a 2012 statement in a letter. You're going to pull that out of context.”
Elsewhere on the Sunday shows, the hosts pounced on the Department of Justice’s election litigation in Alaska over the prank candidate named Dan Sullivan as an instance of election interference, and got absolutely schooled by Attorney General Todd Blanche. CNN’s Dana Bash citied the convenient half of the Constitutional clause governing the election of Members of Congress, and Blanche shot back with the other half of the clause. On CBS, Margaret Brennan was so pushy that Blanche said “If you’re going to talk the whole time, you’re not going to get answers out of me.”
We also discussed election shenanigans in Brazil -- and how the media will underline that the right-wing candidate refused to accept the results (without the context of how election hours were manipulated).
Finally, one of the most glaring cases of bias by omission in this midterm election season on the broadcast networks is their failure to discuss or investigate how the Democrats would operate if they gain majorities in the House and/or Senate. Voters apparently don't need to know how many impeachments are forthcoming, and how many Republicans they will attempt to put in jail. Sen. Elissa Slotkin's recent boasting about scaring young Republicans out of government with incessant lawfare did not make the network news.
Enjoy the podcast below. The audio is here.
