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By Geoffrey Dickens
Beginning on October 17, The Hill broke new stories on the Clinton/Russia/Uranium scandal that deserved extensive coverage. And while Fox News Channel has thoroughly covered the breaking developments they’ve been, unfortunately, the exception and not the rule in TV news.
From October 17 through November 2 The Big Three (ABC, CBS, NBC) networks have devoted a piddly 4 minutes and 38 seconds to the new findings. CBS delivered a pathetic 2 minutes, 34 seconds, followed by ABC at a scant 2 minutes, 4 seconds. Astoundingly, NBC News has failed to devote a single second to any of the most recent charges.
And prior to the October 17 findings the network evening shows had only spent a miserly 3 minutes and 1 second on the Clinton Foundation scandal in more than two years.
While CNN, MSNBC and PBS did offer some coverage of the scandal, they mostly did so in a dismissive manner as to snidely alert their viewers that Trump was out with a tweet on an old story that is meant to distract from his alleged Russia-collusion scandal.
The following is a breakdown of the worst coverage of the latest Clinton/Uranium/Russia scandal developments:
ABC, CBS, NBC
Bribery, bullying of an informant and a Russian spy ring: The Clinton/Russia/Uranium scandal has all the ingredients of a juicy spy thriller, but so far the Big Three (ABC, NBC, CBS) networks have shied away from the key developments in the case:
On October 18, The Hill reported that a key FBI informant involved in the investigation of the Clinton/Russia/Uranium scandal was threatened by the Obama administration and warned not to publicly disclose details.
On October 22, The Hill’s John Solomon and Alison Spann reported the nugget that “A female Russian spy posing as an American accountant....used a false identity to burrow her way into the employ of a major Democratic donor in hopes of gaining intelligence on Hillary Clinton’s department.”
Not only were these tantalizing wrinkles in the scandal blacked out network anchors, reporters and analysts seemed intent on knocking the entire story down, on the few occasions they bothered to mention it. On the October 29 edition of ABC’s This Week, political analyst Matthew Dowd noted the “uranium deal, whole story...has been debunked...all along the way.” CBS’s Face the Nation, on October 29, invited on the Washington Post’s Ruth Marcus to call the Trump’s call to look into the uranium scandal part of a “absolutely frantic effort to distract attention” from accusations of Trump-Russia collusion.
MSNBC
When MSNBC brought up the uranium scandal it was usually to dismiss the case as old news. For example, on October 19, MSNBC’s Brian Williams finally mentioned the words “Russia,” “uranium” and “Clinton” in the same segment BUT it was only to dismiss President Donald Trump’s criticism of the media’s failure to cover this week’s new revelations in the growing scandal.
Williams began his segment on The llth Hour program, by playing a clip of the President’s blast against the liberal media and then recited a Trump tweet: “Uranium deal to Russia, with Clinton help and Obama Administration knowledge, is the biggest story that Fake Media doesn’t want to follow.”
However, instead of telling his viewers about the important news from that week (like the fact that an FBI informant was threatened by the Obama administration), he brought on McClatchy White House correspondent Anita Kumar to dismiss the story as old news that they’ve already covered.
After Williams asked Kumar to “explain to our viewers why they’re gonna hear more on this Russia – this uranium scandal.” Kumar responded: “I have to say that he is wrong about one thing. We covered a lot about uranium during the campaign. This is a deal that took place during the Obama administration when Secretary Clinton was Secretary of State and the administration approved of it. But what he has forgotten is that we wrote tons of stories about this when she was a candidate for president. She is not president. So, things aren’t – you know – they’re not being covered as heavily any more.”
Kumar added “We are gonna hear about it because Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate judiciary committee says he wants to look into this issue because a newspaper, The Hill, wrote about issues with that deal many years ago. They wrote about how there were all sorts of kickbacks and bribery and that sort of thing.”
That’s it. Just a vague reference to “kickbacks and bribery.”
CNN
Repeatedly, one CNN host and correspondent after another shot down the uranium scandal developments.
CNN anchor Don Lemon, on the October 24 CNN Tonight, dismissed the new uranium scandal developments as a “shiny object” meant to distract as seen in this exchange:
DON LEMON: Do you think this is a shiny object that they're trying to divert attention away from the Russia investigation into possible collusion or interfering in the election?
CORRESPONDENT BRIAN FALLON: Totally, Don. I think it’s of a piece with other moves that you saw congressional Republicans undertake today. Reopening an investigation into a seven-year-old deal that sold uranium in the Russian government in 2010.
On the October 25 edition of Anderson Cooper 360, CNN’s Tom Foreman offered a report on the Clinton-Russia-uranium scandal, and then Cooper turned to the pundits for analysis – or, as you might expect, for two Clinton defenders to dismiss it all as irrelevant old news. Foreman cited the new investigative reporting in The Hill newspaper, and Bloomberg’s Joshua Green just pretended it was never published: “This is all old news. I actually wrote about the story and how it came to be in my book published three, four months ago. I mean, all of this stuff came out years ago.”
On the October 27 edition of The Situation Room, anchor Wolf Blitzer and White House correspondent Jim Acosta also batted down the uranium scandal:
WOLF BLITZER: But let’s begin with apparent moves to discredit the entire Russia investigation. Up first, our senior White House correspondent Jim Acosta. Jim, seems like the White House is deploying a smoke screen of distractions.
JIM ACOSTA: It may be a Moscow misdirection, Wolf. The White House now appears to be putting its full weight behind an effort to investigate Hillary Clinton for any possible role in a uranium business deal involving the Russians that happened during the Obama administration. The president is accusing Hillary Clinton of collusion with the Russians without any evidence.
And on the October 29 edition of CNN’s Reliable Sources, the host Brian Stelter managed to attack The Hill and Fox News as he huffed: “Defending President Trump can be hard to do. So, some of his allies in the media don’t even bother to try. Instead they change the subject. This is a campaign of confusion....Here is how the campaign of confusion works. First, The Hill newspaper revived a relatively old story about Russian efforts to gain influence in the American uranium industry during the Obama administration. Fox became fixated on this story and the messaging was clear, the Russian investigations were recast as a scandal for Clinton and the Dems.”
PBS
So far, PBS NewsHour has talked about the latest uranium allegations on JUST two of their programs. On the October 30 edition of PBS’s NewsHour correspondent William Brangham ran interference for Hillary Clinton:
WILLIAM BRANGHAM: So, let’s break this down. First, Secretary Clinton didn’t have the authority to approve the deal. Several different U.S. agencies had to sign off on the deal, all of which did. There is no evidence that Clinton was informed or involved in the sale at all.Second, the uranium never left the country. It’s not legal to export uranium produced in U.S. mines. The Clinton Foundation did receive $145 million in contributions from individuals connected to Uranium One, beginning at least a year before the sale. And, in 2010, the year of the sale, former President Bill Clinton received $500,000 from a Russian bank for a speech he gave in Moscow. For now, those all have been deemed legal transactions. But, still, today, Mr. Trump once again stoked these stories on Twitter.
Then on November 1 Chris Buskirk, the editor of American Greatness, managed to get in a quick reference: “I think that a lot of attention needs to be paid to Robert Mueller and to Rod Rosenstein, for that matter, too. I mean these are two people who I think the more we dig into their records, particularly when you look at something like Uranium One, they’re deeply compromised.”
For more on MRC’s coverage of the Clinton/Uranium/Russia scandal please visit the following blogs:
Jen Rubin Slams 'Disgraceful' Gillespie, 'Conservative Media' Spreading 'Nonsense' on Clinton
Clinton’s Cover: Nets Ignore FBI Lifting Gag Order on Informant
Bozell, Conservative Leaders Demand Media Cover Clinton/Russia Uranium Deal; ‘The Censorship Must End’
FBI Informant in Uranium Scandal Cleared to Testify, Nets Refuse to Report
CNN's Paul Begala, Joshua Green Use Clinton Playbook in Denying Uranium Scandal
CNN Panel Dismisses GOP Push on Clinton/Russia As 'Distraction' from Trump
Bias: 1,000 Minutes for Trump/Russia 'Collusion' vs. 20 Seconds for Hillary/Russia Scandal
Bozell Excoriates Liberal Media’s ‘Scandalous’ ‘Censorship’ of Clinton/Russia Uranium Deal
MRC President Bozell Blasts Network Censorship of Clinton-Uranium Scandal
Russian Spy Tried to Infiltrate Hillary’s Circle, Nets Censor
Brian Williams Finally Mentions Clinton/Russia/Uranium Scandal, Only To Dismiss It
Of Course: CNN Ends Uranium Deal Blackout....with 19-Second Footnote
Obama Admin ‘Threatened’ FBI Informant in Russia/Uranium/Clinton Scandal, Nets Censor
Networks Censor Latest Bombshell on Russia/Uranium/Clinton Scandal
New Evidence in Russia/Uranium/Clinton Foundation Scandal, Will Nets Report?
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By Curtis Houck
Buckle up, everyone. On Thursday’s Deadline: White House, the MSNBC show descended into chaos as MSNBC liberal Republicans Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace lost their minds in shouting down former Vice President Pence aide Marc Lotter when he warned against speculation into the Mueller probe and brought up the dossier and Uranium One stories.
Among other insults, Lotter was accused of spreading “propaganda” and participating in “an absolute, premeditated misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the American people” with the Clinton-Russian uranium deal and Fusion GPS dossier stories promulgated by Fox News.
The first fight took place over the Mueller probe when Wallace pressed Lotter about George Papadopoulos and what she already decided was evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian (even though she hasn’t seen it.).
Lotter stated that “we don't know what Bob Mueller knows” and, even with Monday’s indictments, “there has been no evidence of any kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
Immediately, Wallace got angry and defensive, acting as though she’s being fed information by Mueller and sharing it on background and off the record with viewers:
WALLACE: Why do you keep saying that? How do you know?
LOTTER: Has there been any evidence? I mean, we’re supposed to be dealing in [INAUDIBLE] here. Facts, not speculation.
This didn’t sit well with the failed McCain campaign aide. In response, Wallace wanted to know if Lotter trusted Mueller to do his job and when Lotter stated that he trusted the legal “process to play out,” that was deemed unacceptable:
WALLACE: Bob Mueller is invest — but why are you so eager to get ahead of Bob. Do you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: I'm not going to make a judgment on Bob Mueller. The former FBI director is —
WALLACE: You don’t know if you can trust Bob Mueller? He’s the former FBI director after 9/11. He prevented — are you —
LOTTER: He will make his determination.
WALLACE: — yes or no. Do you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: I would trust the process to play out the way it's meant to be played out. Right now, we have no —
WALLACE: Why can't you say you trust a former FBI director who worked for Republicans and Democrats who kept this country safe after the worst terror attacks on our soil?
LOTTER: It’s not my —
WALLACE: You can't say you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: It’s not my job to come here and say who I trust and don’t trust.
WALLACE: You can't say that? I hope they're paying you a lot of money.
Yeesh. If anyone wants to lecture a guest about being a sellout, Wallace is one of the last people in the news media to be making that claim. Not to be left out, fellow McCain campaign flack and MSNBC liberal GOPer Schmidt jumped in.
Schmidt argued that it’s already a done deal that the Trump campaign and Russia colluded during the election. This, of course, was without any direct evidence. Schmidt cited the indictment of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but Lotter correctly shot back that Manafort’s charges have nothing to do with the campaign.
Schmidt continued:
Donald Trump Jr. met at the invitation of Russian nationals in an e-mail that was titled, you know, essentially from the Russian government to get dirt on the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. And from the Vice President...in every instance, from the Vice President to the Attorney General to the press secretary, the press secretaries, every single person around this administration, when asked a direct question about contacts with the Russians, on this issue, has lied about it. 100% of the time and the lie has unraveled.
The temper tantrum continued when Schmidt argued against discussion of Uranium One and the Trump dossier because it’s proof Lotter is “engaged and involved in here is an absolute, premeditated misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the American people.”
“This whole charge of collusion with regard to the Democrats is complete and total fantasyland nonsense talk that is propagated on Fox News, propagated in the conservative media and you're not — you’re not being honest about it in the representations that you're making,” Schmidt bewailed.
Hmm. It’s like Schmidt doesn’t think people can care about more than one thing at once, all taking the Mueller probe, the Trump dossier, and Uranium one stories seriously.
Lotter started responding to Schmidt’s unhinged conniption, but he only made it so far before Wallace and Schmidt went bananas:
LOTTER: Steve, here are the facts that we know that started with The Washington Post. I think you've probably heard of them. Not Fox News. It started with the Clinton campaign paying hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars to Fusion GPS which went out and hired a foreign operative who Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton's former spokesperson says, I would have gone out and helped him if I could have. They went on and then worked with Kremlin-tied connections to provide misinformation about then candidate, later President-elect of the United States and to make matters worse, the Hillary Clinton campaign, through their operatives, peddled this trash —
WALLACE: Marc, I will —
LOTTER: — to the American people starting last summer —
SCHMIDT: Nonsense!
LOTTER: — through the fall.
SCHMIDT: Just nonsense!
WALLACE: Marc, hey, hey —
SCHMIDT: Nonsense!
What’s noteworthy here is Schmidt and Wallace did nothing to refute Lotter except engage in name-calling and shouting. Such behavior can win some people over, but not everyone.
For example, Wallace told Lotter that she “will call some friends at Fox and try to get you a booking but we’re not going to peddle” his supposed garbage. She then demanded that he accept the premise that collusion occurred and, when Lotter, didn’t take the bait, she again dove into the gutter:
WALLACE: You are being madly defensive. You are about to jump through the camera and punch Steve Schmidt in the neck.
LOTTER: Well, when I get called — when I get called being untrustworthy, I’ll fight back.
ALLACE: Why can't you say it's possible collusion took place? It's probably going to end up that they tried and were incompetent colluders. But what we’re — if it's not a crime, why are you guys — why is it such a raw nerve for you guys?
Lotter countered with what he referred to as a double standard between the Mueller probe and what the Clinton campaign and DNC did on the Trump dossier. Wallace flashed pure pettiness by telling him that she would “send an e-mail over friends at Fox and you can peddle your propaganda there.”
She could have stopped when she replied that her show has covered Uranium One in the past, but such civility was nowhere to be found on the set of this MSNBC show.
Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on November 2:
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
November 2, 2017
4:29 p.m. Eastern
 STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, I want to address something very directly that Marc said that there's no evidence of collusion. Of course, that's not true. The chairman of the campaign, now under indictment, Paul Manafort.
MARC LOTTER: For nothing that had do to with —
SCHMIDT: Donald Trump — Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner
LOTTER: That was back in — that was history.
SCHMIDT: — don't interrupt me. I'm talking.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Marc, Marc, let Steve —
SCHMIDT: Donald Trump Jr. met at the invitation of Russian nationals in an e-mail that was titled, you know, essentially from the Russian government to get dirt on the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. And from the Vice President —
LOTTER: And Hillary Clinton paid —
WALLACE: Hang on. Hang on, Mark. We'll let you respond. We'll let you respond.
SCHMIDT: — in every instance, from the Vice President to the Attorney General to the press secretary, the press secretaries, every single person around this administration, when asked a direct question about contacts with the Russians, on this issue, has lied about it. 100% of the time and the lie has unraveled. And with regard to the uranium deal in the dossier, I think that what you’re engaged and involved in here is an absolute, premeditated misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the American people. This whole charge of collusion with regard to the Democrats is complete and total fantasyland nonsense talk that is propagated on Fox News, propagated in the conservative media —
LOTTER: It started in The Washington Post.
SCHMIDT: — and you're not — you’re not being honest about it in the representations that you're making.
(....)
WALLACE: I will call some friends at Fox and try to get you a booking but we’re not going to peddle — that's not true and all we’re asking — listen. We appreciate that you come here and speak on behalf of Donald Trump, but why can't you say that we don't know if — I mean, we know there was attempted collusion and, if it's not a crime, why are you so defensive about it?
LOTTER: I’m not being defensive. You are accusing me of lying.
WALLACE: You are being madly defensive. You are about to jump through the camera and punch Steve Schmidt in the neck.
LOTTER: Well, when I get called — when I get called being untrustworthy, I’ll fight back.
WALLACE: Why can't you say it's possible collusion took place? It's probably going to end up that they tried and were incompetent colluders. But what we’re — if it's not a crime, why are you guys — why is it such a raw nerve for you guys?
 LOTTER: Well, here’s the question. Here's the double standard. So you talk about these issues here which you say amount to collusion, but the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee go out and pay for this and peddle it and that's just opposition research.
WALLACE: Well, you don't know that we haven't covered that story. Ken Dilanian is with us and we have covered Uranium One.
LOTTER: It’s considered opposition research and brushed away.
WALLACE: I'll send an e-mail over friends at Fox and you can peddle your propaganda there.
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 In an essay for Politico on Thursday, former interim Democratic National Committee Chair Donna Brazile dropped a bombshell on the DNC and the Hillary Clinton campaign. In the piece, which was an excerpt from her upcoming book, Brazile exposed how “ the DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary” through a shady and ethically questionable financial arrangement. Even though it seemed like a plot in House of Cards, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) had a complete blackout of any mention of the news during their evening broadcasts.
The reason the networks wanted to keep Brazile’s findings secret was simple: They didn’t want to ruin their narrative that Clinton was a pure angel who was a victim of Donald Trump and Russian collusion. But in recent weeks, it had come out that Clinton had the DNC in her pocket and they both were funneling money to Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele so they could work with Russian agents to get dirt on Donald Trump.
For the Spanish-language networks, NBC-owned Telemundo followed the example and omitted Brazile from their broadcast. In stark contrast, Univision was the only one to mention the Brazile revelation and dedicated two minutes and 30 seconds to it.
“The former head of the Democratic National Committee skewers Hillary Clinton in a new book about the 2016 election,” announced Fox News Anchor Bret Baier during Special Report. “As Chief Washington Correspondent reports James Rosen reports, Donna Brazile now charges the system was rigged against insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders.”
Reading from Brazile’s account of her internal investigation, Rosen quoted the section on “the Joint Fund-Raising Agreement between the DNC, the Hillary Victory Fund, and Hillary for America”:
“The agreement,” Brazile writes, “signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook of the Clinton campaign with a copy to the general counsel Marc Elias specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the Party communications director and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings.
The agreement was essentially for Clinton to buy out the DNC and take it over as an arm of her campaign. The ink was dry a mere four months after she announced her presidency and not even a year before she finally put Sanders away. It’s worth noting that even with the DNC rigged in her favor, Clinton had an extraordinarily hard time locking up the nomination for herself.
Rosen reached out to the Clinton campaign for comment, but as would be expected they declined to say anything. But when they reached out to the DNC chair at the time, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz told them she was proud of her work there.
And while Brazile claimed to have found no other instance of the Party being tilted in Clinton’s favor, she did omit how she pasted Hillary Clinton questions for the CNN debate. “But in an essay for Time magazine last May, Brazile belatedly acknowledged having done so and called it a mistake she will regret forever,” Rosen recalled.
What we’ve learned over the last couple weeks was that Clinton was doing everything to ensure her entitled victory, even the unethical and dirty. And the networks showed the lengths they would go through to keep her as clean as possible.
Transcript below:
Fox News Channel
Special Report
November 2, 2017
6:19:51 PM Eastern
BRET BAIER: The former head of the Democratic National Committee skewers Hillary Clinton in a new book about the 2016 election. As Chief Washington Correspondent reports James Rosen reports, Donna Brazile now charges the system was rigged against insurgent candidate Bernie Sanders.
[Cuts to video]
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER 1: We wanted to try to get reaction on the Donna Brazile revelations this morning Mr. Sanders.
JAMES ROSEN: Bernie Sanders had no comment on Donna Brazile, former interim Democratic National Committee chair, whose forthcoming memoir alleges in an excerpt in Politico that under her predecessor, Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, quote: “The DNC was rigging the system to throw the primary to Hillary.”
HILLARY CLINTON: Thank you for the great convention we've had.
ROSEN: Brazile reports that the Clinton campaign raised $10 million to retire 80 percent of the Party’s bank debt, but exacted a steep price:
“The agreement,” Brazile writes, “signed by Amy Dacey, the former CEO of the DNC, and Robby Mook of the Clinton campaign with a copy to the general counsel Marc Elias specified that in exchange for raising money and investing in the DNC, Hillary would control the party's finances, strategy, and all the money raised. Her campaign had the right of refusal of who would be the Party communications director and it would make final decisions on all the other staff. The DNC also was required to consult with the campaign about all other staffing, budgeting, data, analytics, and mailings. This victory fund agreement had been signed in August of 2015, just four months after Hillary announced her candidacy and nearly a year before she officially had the nomination.”
JOE TRIPPI: There are lots of things shocking about it. One, the financial condition of the DNC. Two, the way the DNC then had to rely on the Clinton campaign for the money and the resources to continue even operating.
ROSEN: In a statement, Wasserman Schultz told Fox News she's proud of her work at DNC and urged Democrats to remain focused on a Progressive agenda.
UNIDENTIFIED REPORTER 2: Madam Secretary, any response to what Donna Brazile is saying?
ROSEN: The Clinton campaign did not respond to our query, nor would the Federal Elections Commission disclose whether it's investigating Brazile's allegations. Brazile said she search for other evidence of a rigged primary and found none.
(…)
Yet, the excerpt neglects to mention that Brazile used her dual role as a CNN commentator to steer CNN debate questions to Clinton in advance. For months Brazile denied having done so.
MEGYN KELLY: Where did you get it?
DONNA BRAZILE: You know, as a Christian woman, I understand persecution but I will not sit here and be persecuted because your information is totally false.
[Cuts back to live]
ROSEN: But in an essay for Time magazine last May, Brazile belatedly acknowledged having done so and called it a mistake she will regret forever. The DNC’s new leadership told reporters they restructured the Party’s fund-raising and are now committed to electing Democrats every year in every zip code.
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By Kyle Drennen
In an interview with Arizona Senator John McCain for Thursday’s NBC Today, Senior Correspondent Tom Brokaw invited the Republican lawmaker to attack President Trump and painted the liberal media as the victim: “In the course of your political career, especially as a presidential candidate – as I learned first hand – you had some mixed relations with the press. The President has no use for the press, he has turned the country against us, in many ways.”
McCain was quick to agree with Brokaw’s whining: “Yeah, I think the role of the press is more important than ever before. I hate the press, okay? But the fact is, without a free press in this country, a pillar of democracy is destroyed.”
At the top of the segment, Brokaw touted a speech McCain delivered to the Naval Academy on Monday as being “a warning not just for the cadets, but for the country as a whole.” A soundbite followed of the Senator taking a not-so-veiled swipe at Trump: “We have to defeat those who would worsen our divisions. We have to remind our sons and daughters that we became the most powerful nation on Earth by tearing down walls, not building them.”
After recalling the 50th anniversary of McCain being captured by the Vietcong during the Vietnam war, Brokaw worried: “Do you think we’re more divided now than we were then?” McCain replied: “No, I think we were more divided then because we were talking about body bags.”
Brokaw followed up: “Whenever I go across America, inevitably, someone will say to me, ‘Are we gonna be okay?’” McCain commiserated with him: “I hear that, as well. And we are going through a period of turmoil politically, obviously.” The outspoken Trump critic then made this historical comparison: “We are seeing, in many ways, the 1930s. The isolationism, the America Firsters. Now maybe some of the causes are different, but the fact is, we are seeing the United States become much more insular and inward.”
Still eager to get McCain to go after the President directly, Brokaw pressed: “If the President called you up and said, ‘John, what should I be doing I’m not doing right now?,’ what would you say to him?” Without hesitation, the Senator declared: “Stop tweeting. I think I’d say, ‘Stop tweeting.’ I would also say, ‘Look, there’s no reason to attack Republicans, we’ve got enough people to attack them.’”
Following the taped exchange, Brokaw told co-hosts Matt Lauer and Savannah Guthrie that his friendship with McCain had been strained when the Republican ran for president in 2008: “And by the way, the two of us used to have a very close, but appropriate, relationship. And then, as it did with a lot of members of the press, it went to hell when he was running against Obama.”
The former Nightly News anchor added: “We reconciled last summer. His initiative, he said, ‘You know, I was wrong. We’ve got to get back together again.’ And so, we’ll always be reporter and politician, but at the same time, I have an enormous personal affection for him.”
That revelation proves that no matter how much of a media darling any Republican becomes, the press will set to destroy him the moment he runs for election against a Democrat.
Despite Brokaw’s assertion that Trump was responsible for having “turned the country against” the news media, a recent Gallup poll found that Americans’ overall confidence in the press actually ticked up slightly, due to Democrats rushing to defend their journalist allies against Trump’s criticism.
In addition, liberal media figures like Brokaw have long complained about anyone questioning their biased coverage. Back in 2004, at a Harvard University press forum, Brokaw actually ranted against the Media Research Center for holding him and his colleagues accountable:
There are organized interest groups out there. There’s a guy by the name of Brent Bozell, who makes a living at, you know, taking us on every night. He’s well-organized, he’s got a constituency, he’s got a newsletter. He can hit a button and we’ll hear from him.
Brokaw’s slanted conversation with McCain was brought to viewers by Ross, Kaiser Permanente, and LaZboy.
Here is a full transcript of the November 2 report:
8:14 AM ET
MATT LAUER: A lot going on this week. There was a major speech that we may have missed by Senator John McCain, it happened Monday night. NBC News Senior Correspondent Tom Brokaw is here with more on that, and his conversation with Senator McCain. Tom, good to see you. Good morning.
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Good morning.
TOM BROKAW: Well, these days, as you know, Senator McCain, who is battling a very serious brain cancer, has become America’s statesman in many ways. And he went back to the Naval Academy where he graduated fifth from the bottom and talked about all that he has learned. And it was really a warning not just for the cadets, but for the country as a whole. So here’s McCain at the Naval Academy.
SEN. JOHN MCCAIN [R-AZ]: We have to defeat those who would worsen our divisions. We have to remind our sons and daughters that we became the most powerful nation on Earth by tearing down walls, not building them.
[APPLAUSE]
BROKAW: That was Senator John McCain going back to his alma mater, talking about how we have to get engaged in the world. It is a time of reflection for the Senator on many levels. When we met for an interview, it was both the 50th anniversary of his capture by the North Vietnamese and a time of reflection. Senator, when you woke up this morning, did you say to yourself, “Where was I 50 years ago?”
MCCAIN: You know, I did. And I thought, “Wow, maybe I should have zigged when I should have zagged.” Yeah, I thought about it a lot. But I also thought about the heros that I have known and the benefit of having served in the company of heros. I am the luckiest guy you will ever talk to, I promise you.
BROKAW: Does that memory ever fade for you? Is it there constantly, or can you park it somewhere?
MCCAIN: You know, it doesn’t fade, but I have parked it. In life, we have to go on, you know, and put it behind us and be grateful.
BROKAW: Do you think we’re more divided now than we were then?
MCCAIN: No, I think we were more divided then because we were talking about body bags. It was a period of real upheaval in our history. And all of it with the backdrop of these brave, young people who were over there serving and sacrificing.
BROKAW: Whenever I go across America, inevitably, someone will say to me, “Are we gonna be okay?”
MCCAIN: I hear that, as well. And we are going through a period of turmoil politically, obviously. We are seeing, in many ways, the 1930s. The isolationism, the America Firsters. Now maybe some of the causes are different, but the fact is, we are seeing the United States become much more insular and inward.
BROKAW: If the President called you up and said, “John, what should I be doing I’m not doing right now?,” what would you say to him?
MCCAIN: Stop tweeting. I think I’d say, “Stop tweeting.” I would also say, “Look, there’s no reason to attack Republicans, we’ve got enough people to attack them.”
 BROKAW: In the course of your political career, especially as a presidential candidate – as I learned first hand – you had some mixed relations with the press. The President has no use for the press, he has turned the country against us, in many ways.
MCCAIN: Yeah, I think the role of the press is more important than ever before. I hate the press, okay? But the fact is, without a free press in this country, a pillar of democracy is destroyed.
BROKAW: In the Senate, and your private life as well, you’ve had friends on both sides of the aisle. That doesn’t happen anymore. Is that a key to getting the country back on an even keel?
MCCAIN: You know, the guy that I fought with and worked with almost more than anybody in the United States Senate was one Edward M. Kennedy. You know, he and I would yell at each other, we would fight. And we’d walk off and he’d put his arm around me and say, “Hey, we did pretty good, didn’t we?” That’s the kind of relationship that you have to have. And so, we did a lot of legislation together.
BROKAW: Have you loved your life, John?
MCCAIN: Oh, yeah. I’ve loved my life, I can’t tell you. For 60 years now I’ve had the great honor of being involved in the arena, and I’ve loved every minute of it. The disappointments, ups, downs, wins, losses. But no one has had the wonderful life that I’ve had. No one.
BROKAW: And there have been so many John McCain lives. He’s now a senior statesman. And it’s worth going on Google to read the entire speech to the Naval Academy because it is forewarning for these cadets, and for the rest of the country, about where we are and what we ought to be thinking about, Matt.
LAUER: How’s he seem like he’s doing, to you?
BROKAW: Look, it’s a very tough cancer. It is a very difficult cancer. He’s getting great care at the Mayo Clinic in Arizona, but at the same time, he’s a realist and he knows what he’s up to. And I think that’s why we’re seeing so much candor from him and why he wants to, at this stage in his life, to raise his hand and say, “I’m not going to be politically correct anymore.”
And by the way, the two of us used to have a very close, but appropriate, relationship. And then, as it did with a lot of members of the press, it went to hell when he was running against Obama. We reconciled last summer. His initiative, he said, “You know, I was wrong. We’ve got to get back together again.” And so, we’ll always be reporter and politician, but at the same time, I have an enormous personal affection for him.
GUTHRIE: Another thing worth watching is that video after he was captured. A lot of people put it out there online in this – after this anniversary, to watch that.
BROKAW: If I can say one thing, I went to Hanoi and I stood at the edge of the lake where he went in to, and I got very emotional. Thinking about he gets shot down, he drops into the lake, they all go in there and they try to kill him right there, and he pulls out there and he’s got every bone broken in his body. And then he goes into solitary confinement.
LAUER: Tom, an amazing story. Thank you very much, appreciate it.
GUTHRIE: Thank you.
BROKAW: My pleasure.
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By Kyle Drennen
 A new Washington Post/ABC News poll released Thursday afternoon asked respondents to convict President Trump of an unknown “crime” in relation to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation. The leading question found “49 percent think it is likely Trump himself committed a crime in connection with possible Russian attempts to influence the election,” though most admitted that “this view is based on suspicion rather than hard evidence.”
“Do you think it’s likely or unlikely that Trump himself committed a crime in connection with possible Russian attempts to influence the election? (IF LIKELY) Do you think there's been solid evidence of that, or is it your suspicion only?,” the survey asked. Of the 49 percent that thought it was “likely,” only 19 percent thought there was “solid evidence” to back up the charge, while 30 percent confessed that their opinion was founded on “suspicion only.”
Forty-four percent of respondents thought it was “unlikely” that the President “committed [a] crime.” Seven percent had no opinion on the matter.
It’s not that surprising that the Post and ABC would be able to get nearly half of Americans to agree with the premise that Trump was guilty of a crime regarding alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 election. After all, the Big Three network evening newscasts have spent over a thousand minutes of air time promoting that narrative since the day the President was sworn into office – despite a complete lack of evidence.
The pattern is all too familiar. The liberal media spend 10 months insinuating that Trump must be guilty of some criminal conspiracy with Russia to steal the 2016 election, then they ask their viewers and readers to repeat back what they’ve been told every day for nearly a year. Garbage in, garbage out.
The Post write-up of the poll began by triumphantly proclaiming:
More than twice as many Americans approve as disapprove of special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of possible coordination between Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government, a new Washington Post-ABC News poll finds, indicating that the conservative effort to discredit the probe has fallen flat as the case has progressed toward its first public charges.
A significant portion of the article was devoted to dispelling the “conservative” narrative about the investigation:
The president and his surrogates have long sought to raise questions about the credibility of Mueller and his team. In the summer, they focused on the people Mueller was hiring, noting that many had donated to Democratic political candidates and Trump’s opponent in the presidential election, Hillary Clinton.
Trump at that time called the probe the “single greatest WITCH HUNT in American political history,” adding that it was “led by some very bad and conflicted people!”
More recently, Trump and his allies, buoyed by conservative media, have tried to point attention toward the Clinton campaign’s role in funding the production of a salacious dossier about Trump — which was prepared by a former British spy who got information from Russian sources. The special counsel has explored some of the allegations in the dossier.
Conservatives have also sought to highlight Clinton’s alleged role in approving the sale of a Canadian company with mining rights in the United States to Russian’s nuclear energy agency.
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By Chris Reeves
Yes, you are reading the headline correctly. On Thursday’s Deadline: White House, Wall Street Journal White House reporter Eli Stokols was very upset that President Trump called for the death penalty to be imposed on the terrorist who just killed eight people in New York City because – wait for it – Trump didn’t also call for the execution of the Las Vegas mass shooter.
No one bothered to tell Eli that Vegas shooter Stephen Paddock already killed himself. As if that wasn’t enough, Stokols also took the opportunity to claim that the President’s supporters are animated by “bloodthirst” and “ethnocentric nationalism” for wanting the Uzbek terrorist dead.
Host Nicolle Wallace and the rest of the guest panel led off the show by diving straight into the topic of Trump’s public support for executing Sayfullo Saipov. For the most part, they stuck to criticizing Trump’s off-the-cuff attitude when slinging out tweets and how the President’s specific comments about the NYC terrorist might hinder his prosecution. However, when Wallace turned the conversation to Stokols, the WSJ reporter couldn’t help but to psychoanalyze Trump and his supporters as violent, bloodthirsty racists and Islamophobes:
WALLACE: Eli, I guess I'm always surprised, and I probably shouldn't be anymore, but I'm always surprised when a new norm is obliterated. And I asked Jeremy Bash this question yesterday: Is this response to the attack a norm that was violated but that his supporters will love or is this one where he's actually jeopardized the case?
ELI STOKOLS: I think it's both. And I think, you know, when you look at what he's doing, there is a consistency in his response to these kind of situations, to terrorism when the terrorism appears to be carried out by somebody who’s from an Arab country, Muslim country, not from the United States. This is the rhetoric that we heard all throughout the campaign: the bloodthirst, the aggression, the retribution. Those are things that his supporters really like. Now that he's president, it is problematic, as Pete pointed out. The fact that these are subtle legalities basically tells you that these never once occurred to the President because he was, as Phil pointed out, just answering a question. And everything is done kind of rapid fire, in the moment, just read and react. That's all improvisational. But it does -- the unifying thread is the sort of broader politics of Donald Trump, the ethnocentric nationalism. He did not react this way when a white person shot dozens of people in Las Vegas. He did not come and say: well, we have to do an immediate policy change; we need to give this guy the death penalty.
Wow. Well, in spite of the media constantly saying that Trump is an idiot, we now know that at least he doesn’t believe in killing people that are already dead.
The Wall Street Journal really needs to better police the people that it has in important positions like the White House press pool if it wants people to take its journalism seriously.
Earlier today, GQ magazine writer Jay Willis ran a headline story lamenting the same point as Stokols, namely asking why Trump didn’t want the death penalty for the Las Vegas shooter, but did want it for the NYC terrorist. GQ was forced to correct the article with an editor’s note before Stokols made his comments.
See below for a transcript with more context for Stokols's statements:
4:07 PM EST
NICOLLE WALLACE: I mean, Steve Schmidt, there's an obliviousness to the fact that he sits atop of the federal government, a federal government whose justice system he described yesterday as a laughing stock and a joke.
STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, the comments are revelatory in two regards. First, it just shows his total lack of rigor in making any pronouncements. This is someone who revels in his unpreparedness. It's an improvisational act. There's no thought that goes into anything that comes out of his mouth from the callousness displayed towards Puerto Ricans, La David Johnson's widow, across the board. And secondly, what it shows, I think, is a real contempt and a real lack of -- a real ignorance for the concept of the rule of law. And you see it over and over again: his denigration of the federal judiciary, the Comey firing. We're a nation of laws and we've never had a situation where the President of the United States has such pronounced and profound indifference to the concept of the rule of law. So his comments, though not surprising, are inappropriate, as they almost always are.
WALLACE: Eli, I guess I'm always surprised, and I probably shouldn't be anymore, but I'm always surprised when a new norm is obliterated. And I asked Jeremy Bash this question yesterday: Is this response to the attack a norm that was violated but that his supporters will love or is this one where he's actually jeopardized the case?
 ELI STOKOLS: I think it's both. And I think, you know, when you look at what he's doing, there is a consistency in his response to these kind of situations, to terrorism when the terrorism appears to be carried out by somebody who’s from an Arab country, Muslim country, not from the United States. This is the rhetoric that we heard all throughout the campaign: the bloodthirst, the aggression, the retribution. Those are things that his supporters really like. Now that he's president, it is problematic, as Pete pointed out. The fact that these are subtle legalities basically tells you that these never once occurred to the President because he was, as Phil pointed out, just answering a question. And everything is done kind of rapid fire, in the moment, just read and react. That's all improvisational. But it does -- the unifying thread is the sort of broader politics of Donald Trump, the ethnocentric nationalism. He did not react this way when a white person shot dozens of people in Las Vegas. He did not come and say: well, we have to do an immediate policy change; we need to give this guy the death penalty. He did not call for this after Charlottesville when the criminal here did the exact same thing as the person in this case–driving a vehicle into a crowd.
EUGENE ROBINSON: [interjecting] Yeah.
STOKOLS: You step back from all this and you view it in the context of his broader political appeal, it's not surprising at all.
ROBINSON: Exactly. You shouldn't be surprised. You know,-
WALLACE: [joking, interrupting] I’m working, I’m in therapy. I’m on, like, step seven. [laughing]
ROBINSON: -norm after norm after norm, I mean, come on! [laughs] I thought we had progressed further than this, okay? We've just been set back. Uh, no. This is who he is. As Steve said, he's improvisational. As Eli said, he is obsessed with projecting this image of strength. Now, people who are obsessed with projecting an image of strength are generally insecure and feel inadequate in some way. But that be be [sic] that as it may, that is who it is. That’s who he is, and he's President of the United States right now. So he says totally inappropriate things. And he -- I mean, for the President to jump into the middle of a criminal prosecution is not done, but, yeah it is.
WALLACE: Right.
(...)
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 “ This is what bribery looks like,” declared federal prosecutor J.P. Cooney on Thursday was the closing arguments in the long-running corruption trial of Democratic New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez. The trial had seen contentious exchanges between the defense and the judge, claims of a lack of impartiality, and requests for the case to be thrown and for a mistrial to be declared. The closing arguments themselves were just as fiery, but just as with the rest of the trial, the Big Three Networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) pretended it didn’t happen.
Since day one, the network evening news shows have not touched the story at. As the Media Research Center’s Mike Ciandella recently reported about the network’s preference for Robert Mueller indictments over Menendez:
But the networks aren’t opposed to covering political scandals – as long as the scandal doesn’t involve their political allies. On the night of October 30 alone, these three evening news broadcasts spent a total of 33 minutes and 9 seconds combined covering the indictments handed out by Special Counsel Robert Mueller. These indictments are obviously news, but the fact that the networks could spend more than half an hour in one night on this story and not a single second in nearly two months on Menendez shows a blatant bias.
And a CNN report following the day in court showed just how appealing the story should be for them to cover. “Prosecutors accuse Menendez of pressuring high-level officials in the Obama administration and other career diplomats to help Melgen resolve his business disputes in exchange for political contributions,” Laura Jarrett wrote. “A luxurious hotel suite at the Park Hyatt in Paris, and free rides on Melgen's private jet that Menendez failed to report on his Senate disclosure form.”
In his argument to the jury on Thursday, federal prosecutor J.P. Cooney described Menendez and the “personal U.S. Senator” of Dr. Salomon Melgen, the Florida eye doctors alleged to be the financier of the bribery scheme. “Robert Menendez may have been elected to represent New Jersey, but Robert Menendez chose instead to represent the wealthy doctor from Florida,” he said. “This is what bribery looks like.
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