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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 The revalations concerning missing FBI text messages continued to snowball on Tuesdayas news trickled out that, via the remaining 50,000 texts, the FBI was home to a so-called “secret society” that began meeting after President Trump was elected. And despite how the revelations have been reported by other major news outlets, the three major network news outlets have been reluctant to cover them. ABC still has yet to report on the missing text messages while NBC was finally dragged to it and CBS started to downplay it.
After all three networks initially ignored the reports on Monday, CBS was the first to break the silence on Tuesday’s CBS This Morning with just over three minutes of coverage. But later that evening, their coverage of the missing text messages dramatically shrunk to just 36 seconds and almost seemed to paint it as something the White House was claiming happened.
“The White House claims the investigation is biased,” declared White House Correspondent Major Garrett during CBS Evening News. “At a White House meeting Monday, attended by Sessions, White House counsel Don McGahn and F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, the main topic was five months of missing text message between high-level F.B.I. employees, some of which have been released publicly and do demonstrate a pattern of political bias against Mr. Trump.”
Just as with CBS, who hid the missing messages in a larger Russia investigation story, NBC Nightly News followed suit with a scant 27 seconds for the story. “As the investigation gets closer to the President, Mr. Trump is escalating his battle with the very department that's investigating him,” chided White House Correspondent Kristen Welker. “This morning, slamming the FBI, after revelations they're missing five months worth of text messages between FBI agent who was removed from the special counsel probe for writing disparaging messages about then-candidate Trump.”
Fox News Channel’s Special Report has been on top of the story from the very beginning and led their Tuesday evening coverage with it. Chief Investigative Correspondent Catherine Herridge pointed out that the cryptic messages between anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok and his mistress FBI lawyer Lisa Page mentioned the “secret society.”
“Another Republican who read the texts, said the FBI officials talk about a, quote, ‘secret society’ within days of President Trump's victory,” Herridge noted. “’I have a sense of unfinished business. Unleashed it with MYE—‘ or Mid-year exam, the FBI’s codename for the Clinton e-mail case, ‘Now I need to fix it and finish it,’” she read from a text message.
The existence of the FBI’s secret society was confirmed by Republican Senator Ron Johnson (Wisc.) who, in an interview with host Bret Baier a short time later, spoke of an “informant” that exposed it to his Senate Homeland Security Committee:
What this is all about is further evidence of corruption, more than bias. But corruption of the highest levels of the FBI. And that secret society, we have an informant talking about a group that was holding secret meetings off-site. There is so much smoke here, there is so much suspicion.
Instead of dedicating serious time to the missing FBI text messages or taking the “secret society” seriously, all three of the networks were fawning over the Oscar nominations.
Relevant portions of the transcripts were below:
CBS Evening News
January 23, 2018
6:34:38 PM Eastern
(…)
MAJOR GARRETT: The White House claims the investigation is biased. At a White House meeting Monday, attended by Sessions, White House counsel Don McGahn and F.B.I. Director Christopher Wray, the main topic was 5 months of missing text message between high-level F.B.I. employees, some of which have been released publicly and do demonstrate a pattern of political bias against Mr. Trump. In a statement about the F.B.I., a White House spokesman said the President, "Believes politically motivated senior leaders, including former Director Comey and others he empowered, have tainted the agency's reputation for unbiased pursuit of justice." At the white house meeting, Wray also protested the pressure sessions was applying to fire F.B.I. Director cake over the
(…)
...
 NBC Nightly NewsJanuary 23, 2018 7:05:18 PM Eastern
(…)
KRISTEN WELKER: As the investigation gets closer to the President, Mr. Trump is escalating his battle with the very department that's investigating him. This morning, slamming the FBI, after revelations they're missing five months worth of text messages between FBI agent who was removed from the special counsel probe for writing disparaging messages about then-candidate Trump. To an FBI attorney who also worked on the Mueller team. The President calling it “one of the biggest stories in a long time.”
(…)
...
Fox News Channel
Special Report
January 23, 2018
6:01:35 PM Eastern
(…)
CATHERINE HERRIDGE: On the same day a Justice Department official confirmed the attorney general’s special counsel interview, new text messages suggest senior investigators were skeptical the Russia probe would uncover any wrongdoing.
[Cuts to video]
Two days after Special Counsel Robert Mueller took over the Russia probe in May, newly released text messages between Peter Strzok and re-assigned lawyer Lisa Page suggest they discuss the merits of joining Mueller's team. Strzok writes "You and I both know the odds are nothing. If I thought it was likely, I would be there no question. I hesitate in part because of my gut sense and concerned there is no big "There" there."
 (…)
HERRIDGE: Another Republican who read the texts, said the FBI officials talk about a, quote, “secret society” within days of President Trump's victory.
JOHN RATCLIFFE (R-Tx): There was a society of at least two people, to include Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, that had a desire to keep Donald Trump from becoming president and then an expressed intent to work against him after he was elected president.
HERRIDGE: In the cryptic texts, Strzok writes, "I have a sense of unfinished business. Unleashed it with MYE—“ or Mid-year exam, the FBI’s codename for the Clinton e-mail case, "Now I need to fix it and finish it." The FBI blames the technical problem in a five-month gap in the texts and would not comment on whether the bureau had taken physical custody of their phones to recover the messages.
(…)
6:11:23 PM Eastern
RON JOHNSON: What this is all about is further evidence of corruption, more than bias. But corruption of the highest levels of the FBI. And that secret society, we have an informant talking about a group that was holding secret meetings off-site. There is so much smoke here, there is so much suspicion.
BRET BAIER: Let’s stop there. A secret society? Secret meetings off-site of the Justice Department?
JOHNSON: Correct.
BAIER: And you have an informant saying that?
JOHNSON: Yes.
BAIER: Anything more about that?
JOHNSON: We have to dig into it. This is not a distraction. Again, this is biased, potentially corruption, at the highest levels of the FBI that is no investigating---
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By Curtis Houck
Just think, this is who MSNBC considers to be one of its best and brightest Republicans. On Tuesday’s Hardball, political analyst and 2008 McCain campaign manager Steve Schmidt tore into Republican questions about the FISA memo and Strzok-Page texts as “snake oil” “McCarthyism” being “abetted” by the Fox News Channel serving as “state-run TV in an autocratic society.”
Unbelievably, Schmidt’s deranged rants kept host Chris Matthews from seizing the mantle as the nuttiest person on Tuesday’s show. Schmidt began by complaining about “the abnormality of what's happening here” with “this allegation that there's a deep state” and a secret society inside the FBI has nothing to do with asking questions or finding out the truth.
Rather, the MSNBC analyst argued that such claims are “autocratic behavior” meant to degrade the Constitution and “the legitimacy of the presidency.”
“[I]t’s abetted by members of the Republican majority in the Congress and it's abetted by a television network that's increasingly come to resemble state-run TV in an autocratic society,” Schmidt added in a swipe at FNC. As a reminder, this is a man who viciously blamed conservative talk radio host Mark Levin for “the demise of the conservative movement.”
Matthews agreed, ruling that the “smoke screen” concerns about the missing text messages and the FISA Memo distract from the real issues (which is the necessity to find collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia).
Fellow MSNBC analyst Frank Figliuzzi joined in, blasting the stories as part of “a scorched Earth policy” that’s “designed to attack your attackers and it's something that, I think, we've seen Trump do throughout his career professionally and politically.”
As a former intelligence official, Figliuzzi dismissed the notion of a deep state or secret society within the government. Instead, he suggested that there’s one “within the halls of Congress” with Republican Congressman Devin Nunes (Calif.) “waving around a memo that he won't show to anybody.”
Triggered by the mention of Nunes, Matthews attacked him as a “tool” and “the kingpin of this escapade” before playing clips of Republican Congressman John Ratcliffe (Tex.) and Trey Gowdy (S.C.) discussing the underreported stories on FNC’s The Story.
After the clips, Matthews told Schmidt that these stories seems like they’re being peddled by a “snake oil salesman” and questioned Gowdy’s credibility because “he spent one million hours trying to grill Hillary on Benghazi and he got nowhere.”
Schmidt trashed the concerns raised about the missing texts and the FISA memo as “absolutely snake oil.” Further, he cited zero evidence himself in giving a full-throated defense of Strzok and Page, arguing that “[t]here's absolutely zero evidence that any of these FBI agents whose had their private text messages compromised” or that “they misused their badge, their office, their credentials to abuse the President, his family, or any of the President's supporters.”
“Again, this is smear campaign directed at these two FBI agents absent any evidence. It is latter day McCarthyism and it is entirely about what it seems to be about, which is trying to blow smoke around this investigation to obstruct the American people from finding out what went on here at all costs,” he bemoaned.
Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on January 23:
MSNBC’s Hardball
January 23, 2018
7:23 p.m. Eastern
 STEVE SCHMIDT: I do think, Chris, it's important to understand that the abnormality of what's happening here, this allegation that there's a deep state, that there's a conspiracy within, that there's a fifth column in the intelligence services, in the law enforcement community, deeply embedded in the American justice system, that is attacking the Constitution, the legitimacy of the presidency, of this President, all of this is the hallmark of autocratic behavior. In every autocratic system that's ever been, there's always been the allegation of conspiracy. It, of course, conveniently, also the scapegoating of an ethnic minority and we can think about that insidious and terrible TV ad that the President's team had up on the air this weekend. So this conspiracy — it’s abetted by members of the Republican majority in the Congress and it's abetted by a television network that's increasingly come to resemble state-run TV in an autocratic society much more than it has been as a conservative television network as we would have recognized it in the past.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Frank, let me ask you about the long knives, the knifes are out. Going after people like McCabe, trying to make them the bad guy. Tell me about that as a strategy. I think it's a smoke screen and something for people to talk about, whether it's Hillary's e-mails or Bengla — Benghazi over and over again. It seems like if you do say something I billion times, people think it's really important.
FRANK FIGLIUZZI: It's a scorched Earth policy. It’s designed to attack your attackers and it's something that, I think, we've seen Trump do throughout his career professionally and politically. But I want to talk about the deep state because it's answering your question which is first of all in, 25 years as an FBI official, I've never seen anything that looks remotely like some kind of deep state conspiracy. The closest we're coming to and quite frankly. it is within the halls of congress. We have a Congressman Nunes who is waving around a memo that he won't show to anybody. He won't release it. He claims it contains clear evidence that seems to be only in his possession that the FBI exploited or abused the Foreign Surveillance Court in order to get surveillance on Carter Page and my message to the people in Congress holding on to this is look, you've got three options tonight. If you've really got that kind of information, release it. Let the FBI get their act together and correct whatever happened in that FISA affidavit. You can give it to the chief judge of the FISA court. You give it to the duly-appointed Republican director of the FBI, right? Or you could give it to the inspector general of the Department of Justice. But sitting on it shows yourself to be a political animal motivated solely by politics.
MATTHEWS: But the kingpin of this escapade, Mr. Nunes is the guy who notoriously did the midnight ride of Paul Revere, goes down to the EOB, the Executive Office of the President, gets some dirt. Next morning, he shows up at the White House with the dirt as if he discovered something like the Pentagon Papers and made it look like he was really blowing the cover on the bad guys, the Democrats. He is a tool. Anyway, the President this morning renewed another attack on Mueller's probe. He referenced Peter Strzok, the former counter intelligence official who Mueller removed from the investigation last summer. Mueller got rid of him after learning about text messages he exchanged with another FBI employee actually critical of Trump. President tweeted: “In one of the biggest stories in a long time, the FBI now says it is missing five months worth of lovers Strzok-Page texts, perhaps 50,000 [of pages], all in prime time. Wow!” That's Trump building it up. The tweet comes two weeks after Trump accused Strzok, with no evidence, of treason over the texts in which in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. GOP lawmakers say they're evidence of anti-Trump bias at top levels of the FBI. Let’s listen
[CLIPS OF REPUBLICAN CONGRESSMAN JOHN RATCLIFFE AND TREY GOWDY]
 MATTHEWS: You know, Steve, it sounds like snake oil salesman to me and I keep reminding myself that Trey Gowdy — I don’t know if he’s a good guy or bad guy — but he spent one million hours trying to grill Hillary on Benghazi and he got nowhere. Nowhere with it. Your thoughts?
SCHMIDT: Well, it’s absolutely snake oil. There's absolutely zero evidence that any of these FBI agents whose had their private text messages compromise. There's zero evidence that they misused their badge, their office, their credentials to abuse the President, his family, or any of the President's supporters. Again, this is smear campaign directed at these two FBI agents absent any evidence. It is latter day McCarthyism and it is entirely about what it seems to be about, which is trying to blow smoke around this investigation to obstruct the American people from finding out what went on here at all costs.
MATTHEWS: Well, it says to me the more smoke, the closer they're getting to these guys.
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By Scott Whitlock
ABC, CBS and NBC on Tuesday spun the end of the government shutdown from the perspective of angry liberals, hyping that Democrats are being “blasted by left-wing,” “progressives” who are unhappy about how the party bungled the impasse.
CBS This Morning co-host John Dickerson opened the segment by showcasing liberal rage: “A three-day federal government shutdown is over, and Senate Democrats are being blasted by left-wing groups for buckling and taunted by President Trump.”
Talking to Senator Sherrod Brown, Cordes avoided questioning the Democrat on whether the shutdown was a wise idea in the first place. Instead, she worried about its failure: “Some of your fellow progressives thought you should have held out for more.”
 There was no doubt that CBS saw winners and losers. Cordes recounted, “The White House argued Democrats gained little from their hardball strategy.” Dickerson opened the program by explaining, “The government is open again after Senate Democrats backed down from a budget and immigration standoff. The president calls it a big win...”
This is a contrast from Monday night when the CBS Evening News offered a more indefinite spin, avoiding winners and losers.
Over on Good Morning America, reporter Mary Bruce fretted that Democrats got rolled with a vague promise: “This is a huge gamble for Democrats. They shut down the government over Dreamers and ultimately it's not clear if they're going to get what they want.”
 In case the threat wasn't clear, she basically restated the danger: "But it’s a big risk for Democrats, who shut down the government over demands that Dreamers be protected. Now they are changing course and trusting that the Republican leader will follow through."
Reporter Cecilia Vega described the President as going on a “victory lap” and of “gloating.”
NBC’s Today downplayed the whining from the left about losing, but did note that Trump claimed a win. Peter Alexander related, “The President on Twitter also claiming a big win for Republicans here, dismissing Democrats for caving.”
A transcript of the CBS segment is below:
CBS This Morning
1/23/18
7am tease
JOHN DICKERSON: The government is open again after Senate Democrats backed down from a budget and immigration standoff. The president calls it a big win, but a clash is still looming over DACA.
...
DICKERSON: A three-day federal government shutdown is over, and Senate Democrats are being blasted by left-wing groups for buckling and taunted by President Trump. The President tweeted, "Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on shutdown after signing a short-term spending bill."
GAYLE KING: That measure does not deal with the DACA program for nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants. Senate Republicans promise a vote on DACA by next month. Nancy Cordes is on Capitol Hill with this story. Nancy, good morning. What a day.
NANCY CORDES: Really, and while the shutdown may be over, lawmakers bought themselves just two and a half weeks before the money is set to run out again. And while Democrats did extract that promise from the Senate's leader, they got no such guarantee from House Republicans, meaning, really, they're facing nearly as much uncertainty as before.
VOICE: The yeas are 266. The nays are 150 —
CORDES: With back-to-back votes to reopen the government —
SENATOR JONI ERNST: The motion to concur is agreed to.
CORDES: — Congress crawled out of a hole it dug itself.
SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: This is not a moment to pat ourselves on the back, not even close. We very much need to heed the lessons of what just happened here.
CORDES: What happened was a three-day partisan standoff over something almost every leader claims to want. A bill protecting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
SENATOR DICK DURBIN: The issue of immigration, the issue of the Dreamers, is the civil rights issue of our time.
CORDES: The White House argued Democrats gained little from their hardball strategy.
SARAH HUCKABEE: I would say that those numbers are much more in the President's favor than in Senator Schumer's favor.
 CORDES: Democrats claimed they succeeded by forcing GOP leader Mitch McConnell to commit to a vote on Dreamer legislation for the first time. Some of your fellow progressives thought you should have held out for more.
SENATOR SHERROD BROWN: I think we got a good deal.
CORDES: Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal disagreed. .
SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: It eaves the Dreamers out in the cold, potentially vulnerable to mass deportation.
CORDES: Jose Lopez is one of those Dreamers. His parents brought him here from Mexico when he was two.
JOSE LOPEZ (Dream Team Los Angeles spokesperson): The time to act was now. I feel like they lost that chance.
CORDES: He now works as a communications director for a nonprofit in L.A.
LOPEZ: My biggest fear is that it's been 17 years, there's going to be another 17 years before we hear anything else.
CORDES: It all depends on how far four congressional leaders can get in the next 16 days, crafting a compromise that pairs Dreamer protections with more border security.
REP. STENY HOYER: I pray that neither I nor the Congress will be in this same position come February 8th.
CORDES: He may need those prayers because 16 legislative days, well, that's really six days around here because the House is taking the rest of the week off. That's a very short amount of time to tackle an issue, immigration, that has stymied Congress for decades. One bright spot in this spending bill for both sides but really for Democrats is the fact that it reinstated the Children's Health Insurance Program for another six years.
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By Kyle Drennen
In an exclusive interview aired on Tuesday’s Andrea Mitchell Reports with Vice President Mike Pence during his overseas trip to Israel, MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell was aghast at him accurately holding Democrats accountable for shutting down the government. She proceeded to lecture Pence on his decision to publicly criticize liberal lawmakers while on foreign soil.
“On this trip, you, in front of Israeli television and standing next to a foreign leader, slammed Senator Schumer by name for the shutdown. Was that appropriate?,” Mitchell fretted. The Vice President stood by his statement: “Well, the reality is that this was an unnecessary government shutdown and the American people know it....it was important for us to set the record straight. The Schumer shutdown failed, the American people know it, and I thought it was the right time for me to make that clear.”
The NBC News Foreign Affairs Correspondent insisted:
You don’t think you’re being too political? Also, when you broke precedent, and on a military base overseas, forward base, you told the troops that it was the Democratic minority responsible for the shutdown....It was a political statement. You’ve been criticized for that.
It’s not as if Mike Pence was the first American political leader to be critical of his political opponents while overseas. President Obama got in the habit of doing it frequently as his presidency drew to a close, often bashing Republican candidates running to succeed him.
In another portion of the exchange aired later on the January 23 program, Mitchell feared Pence’s address to the Israeli parliament was too pro-Israel:
In your Knesset speech, the Israeli parliament, you gave unconditional support to Israel, and the Palestinians feel that this is adding insult to injury. They now say that the U.S. is no longer an honest broker to negotiate a peace deal.
The Vice President assured her: “The United States has played a leading role in seeking peace here in the Middle East, now for decades.” She interrupted: “But you have changed that with your speech yesterday, have you not?” He responded: “I don’t believe so. What I said yesterday is long-standing American policy.”
Continuing to hyperventilate, Mitchell declared:
Sir, you’re a man of such deep faith, which is so apparent, especially here in the Holy City, and even the Coptic Christians whom you wanted to meet with, say that that decision about the embassy in Jerusalem has undercut the chances for peace, not improved the chances for peace. They wouldn’t even meet with you.
The liberal host simply could not conceal her disdain for the Trump administration’s foreign or domestic policy.
The biased interview was brought to viewers by Merrill Lynch, HomeAdvisor, and Office Depot.
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By Bill D'Agostino
Joe Scarborough, host of MSNBC’s Morning Joe confessed on his show Tuesday morning that he is “sounding more like” a Democrat every morning.
The comment came up while panelists were discussing the end of the government shutdown. Commentary Magazine’s Noah Rothman argued that the C.H.I.P. funding secured in the Monday bill to reopen the government amounted to an optics defeat for congressional Democrats, as last Friday’s bill – which Democrats voted against – had contained the same proposal. Scarborough disagreed: “But if I'm a Democrat, and of course, I'm not, but God knows I'm sounding more like one every morning...”
Scarborough’s fumble elicited chuckles from his fellow panelists, while his fiancee and co-host Mika Brezinski replied, “I’m very proud of you.”
He continued excitedly, “If I’m a Democrat, and I went back to my Town Hall meeting, and they said, ‘You backed down!’ I would say, ‘I did what? I guaranteed – by standing up to Donald Trump and making sure he was out of this process – I guaranteed C.H.I.P. funding.’”
The former-Republican-turned-Independent went on to explain how Democrats could frame the extension of C.H.I.P. funding as a policy victory: “You're telling me that a three-day shutdown wasn't worth guaranteeing health care for millions and millions of the truly disadvantaged children? That's a win for Democrats if they know how to spin it the right way.”
Interestingly, after characterizing his own narrative as pro-Democrat spin, Scarborough went on to repeat that argument five times within the next hour on his show. He even framed the policy as a triumph of negotiation during a conversation with Senator Chris Coons (D-DE):
How could [Democrats] not celebrate the fact that in exchange for keeping the government open for three weeks, you were able to get health care for nine million of the most truly disadvantaged children across America, and get that funding for six years? What progressive would not call that a victory?
Senator Coons appeared amused by this remark, but was ultimately less enthused. The Senator explained that while the secured funding was a plus, he and his colleagues considered it only one of “several other important things not addressed.”
Scarborough, not deterred by the answer, pressed the issue further: “Senator, those are still on the table... And this morning, nine million children from the least advantaged homes in America know, they’re going to have health care reform.”
As panelist Noah Rothman pointed out earlier in the segment, Republicans had already included C.H.I.P. in any short-term funding measure, meaning Democrats could have secured the funding on Friday without shutting down the government. However, Scarborough would never let something as trivial as the truth get in the way of liberal talking points.
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By Nicholas Fondacaro
 As the controversy-filled 2017 NFL season was set to come to an end in a couple of weeks, the league found itself engulfed in controversy Tuesday when they banned an ad from a veterans group asking people to “please stand” for the national anthem. It was a truly sad story, but the none of the major network news outlets (ABC, CBS, and NBC) felt the need to report it to their viewers during their evening broadcasts.
While the liberal networks were drooling over the recently announced Oscar nominations, Fox News Channel’s Special Report was going the veterans group justice. “New England and Philadelphia will play on the field, but there is another battle taking place involving the NFL, veterans, and the national anthem,” announced anchor Bret Baier as he introduced the segment.
“The NFL has rejected a $30,000 print ad from a veterans group for the games program that addressed the issue with these two words: Please stand,” reported Fox News’ media analyst Howard Kurtz. “Amvets, founded by World War II veterans, had already modified the wording of the request of the company handling the program, but the league has final say. And Amvets now accuses the NFL of corporate censorship.”
Amvets National Commander Marion Polk laid it all out for Fox News. “The NFL, bottom line, just denied us our opportunity for free speech,” he explained. “We didn't place this ad, please stand, for any political reason whatsoever. It was our way of just getting the American public to stand in their beliefs.”
As reported by Kurtz, despite the Amvets’ non-political intentions, the NFL asserted that the program had “never been a place for advertising they could be considered by some as a political statement.” But it was clear that the NFL was shutting down those they saw as opposing the players: “The NFL naturally wants the day’s focus on the Patriots and Eagles, not political ads. But since any on-field protest will draw huge media coverage, the league does seem to be blocking the other side's message.”
Kurtz also noted how rough the year had been for the NFL because of their position to back their protesting players. “It's been a tough season for the NFL with sinking ratings and constant controversy over protesting players who kneel during the national anthem,” he recalled. “And that controversy is now casting a shadow on the league's premier showcase: the Super Bowl.”
It’s no wonder the liberal networks didn’t care about what happened to the veterans because they enthusiastically took the side of the protesting players. When President Trump first went to battle with the NFL, ABC and NBC claimed Trump was using racially coded rhetoric. And as Puerto Rico was just beginning their insanely long road to recovery after Hurricane Maria, they elevated the spat with 3.6 times more airtime than the crisis (92 minutes to 25 minutes).
As with most political subjects, the networks picked their side and supported it over everything else, including veterans.
Transcript below:
Fox News Channel
Special Report
January 23, 2018
6:38:05 PM Eastern
BRET BAIER: Welcome back to the White House. You may have heard the Super Bowl is coming a week from Sunday, Super Bowl LII [52]. New England and Philadelphia will play on the field, but there is another battle taking place involving the NFL, veterans, and the national anthem. Fox News media analyst and host of Fox’s Media Buzz Howard Kurtz fills us in.
[Cuts to video]
HOWARD KURTZ: It's been a tough season for the NFL with sinking ratings and constant controversy over protesting players who kneel during the national anthem. And that controversy is now casting a shadow on the league's premier showcase: the Super Bowl. The NFL has rejected a $30,000 print ad from a veterans group for the games program that addressed the issue with these two words: Please stand. Amvets, founded by World War II veterans, had already modified the wording of the request of the company handling the program, but the league has final say. And Amvets now accuses the NFL of corporate censorship.
 MARION POLK: The NFL, bottom line, just denied us our opportunity for free speech.
KURTZ: An NFL spokesman said the big game has “never been a place for advertising they could be considered by some as a political statement.” He said the super bowl will salute vets of the military on the field, at the NFL had asked Amvets to consider alternative wording, “Please honor our veterans,” the group didn't respond in time.
POLK: We didn't place this ad, please stand, for any political reason whatsoever. It was our way of just getting the American public to stand in their beliefs.
KURTZ: President Trump kicked off a season of controversy by tweeting about the kneeling players and personally denouncing them.
DONALD TRUMP: Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say get that son of a [bleeped] off the field right now?
[Cuts back to live]
KURTZ: The NFL naturally wants the day’s focus on the Patriots and Eagles, not political ads. But since any on-field protest will draw huge media coverage, the league does seem to be blocking the other side's message.
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