Marco Rubio represents the new-age conservative who has no interest in playing the role of polite punching bag while the media lobs biased, derogatory questions.
Rubio wasn’t having more of the same when confronting Margaret Brennan on CBS’s “Face the Nation” last weekend. The first outrageously biased question tossed out by Brennan came on the heels of Rubio returning from the marathon peace talks in Alaska.
“There was some concern,” Brennan began, opening the door to the mysterious “there” intelligence source. That Trump’s team might “bully” Zelensky into “signing something.” Another vague masterpiece of journalistic guesswork -- “signing something.”
Brennan’s would-be “gotcha moment” turned into an embarrassing exchange, but not for Rudio. The Secretary of State pushed back, and called out her network’s “stupid media narrative,” which effectively put a stop to that line of questioning.
Fair is fair in the new media wars, and this round didn’t go well for CBS (which faces new disasters in ratings).
Rubio seized the opening to point out just how absurd her claim was. For weeks, he said, Trump, his team, and world leaders have been buried in negotiations with President Zelensky.
Brennan’s half-baked theory about “concerns of bullying” most likely go a long way in her media bubble. But under the harsh light of reality, the theory is read as another attempt to undermine and discredit the Trump Administration.
This wasn’t the first time in recent weeks a conservative turned the tables on an absurdly biased reporter. CNN’s Pamela Brown tried the classic “gotcha moment” when discussing the red-hot topic of illegal immigration. She lobbed a question at Steve Miller, advisor to the White House, summing up a dramatic tale of an “undocumented immigrant” allegedly set up by the U.S. government for deportation.
If there were ever a textbook case of cringeworthy journalism, this was it: Miller calmly tore apart what sounded like such a well-prepared CNN question: “Do you mean an illegal alien?” asked Miller. When Miller pursued the status of the alleged victim, Brown asserted “it was neither here nor there” as to whether the person (allegedly set up by the government) had “fake papers” or a “passport.”
Miller wasn’t about to drop the newscaster’s word choice. “No you said ‘undocumented.’ Words matter. When we use language designed to obscure the truth, the truth disappears.” There wasn’t much left of the argument from that point.
It was the kind of basic questions -- asked by Miller -- that would require CNN to actually investigate the facts. That approach, too often, has fallen outside the scope of CNN’s coverage.
Brown, still wobbly from Miller’s verbal retaliation, tried to move onto safer ground. She threw out a new question: Did the administration expect federal judges to “rubber stamp” the deportation orders of illegal aliens, a process now underway by the Trump Administration?
She knew she was in trouble when Miller began with: “With all due respect, Pam…” He, then, politely asked her to consider the “built-in absurdity” to the premise of her “rubber stamp” question. In a word, “no,” 700 district judges do not get to veto the mandate the president has been given. Miller had his own question to ask Brown: “Why hadn’t 700 district judges attempted to stop the Biden Administration” from turning our borders into a nightmare of drug and sex trafficking and criminal assaults?
Brown probably won’t be sending a “thank you” note to Miller, and he won’t be coming back any time soon. Still, the exchange served as an instructive tutorial in the new age of journalism: Conservatives are saying what they came to say, no matter the attempts to turn the interviews into a circus of obnoxious interruptions.
This time round, Brown was left looking visibly annoyed, like someone who had just discovered she’d lost control of the interview, and her teleprompter had switched narratives on her.
The Jim Acosta era, when a reporter could hijack the room and make himself the headline, is long gone -- along with Acosta’s White House credentials. The temperature in the press room has shifted: Acosta fought the president and won while attempting to stay in the White House briefing room, but his actions led to his own dismissal at CNN.
And just like that, President Trump managed to oust more than the Jim Acostas, but he reshaped the White House press corps (along with who and who doesn’t receive credentials). The familiar flock of sheep bleating out the same talking points has been reshaped into a mixed bag of podcasters, independent outlets, and even pro-Israel publications.
For reporters long used to controlling the airwaves, the new flocks of reporters must have been a shock: Though, perhaps, not as shocking as the sight of their audiences continuing to vanish -- along with much of their credibility.
Image: Gage Skidmore