On July 18, Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard declassified bombshell findings about the role of the Obama administration played in late 2016 and early 2017 to manufacture the Trump-Russia collusion hoax. Unsurprisingly, ABC, CBS, and NBC — which spent 2,284 minutes on their flagship evening newscasts salivating over every turn — have devoted only two minutes and 17 seconds on Gabbard’s disclosures.
To put that in perspective, the networks have dedicated just over 1,000 times more airtime on a story used to bludgeon the first Trump presidency than on revelations that they were not only dubious, but a manufactured lie.
As our Tim Graham wrote Saturday at FoxNews.com, the CBS Evening News was the only evening newscast on July 22 to mention Gabbard’s appearance hours earlier in the Brady Briefing Room to detail the findings and answer questions.
Co-anchor John Dickerson lamented to senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe that President Trump “said anytime a Republican is asked about Epstein, they should talk about Barack Obama” and “[t]hat basically was happening in the Briefing Room today.”
“The White House tried again to redirect focus on to a different subject, in this case how the Obama administration investigated potential Russian interference in the 2016 elections. National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard walked reporters through her review of the matter, and accused the former president of leading a coup against Trump,” O’Keefe replied, referring to the Jeffrey Epstein case.
The July 22 NBC Nightly News made reference to Gabbard, but only that she leveled “recent claims that Obama officials manufactured intelligence with Russian interference,” and was the basis of President Trump’s “conspiracy theory...Obama tried to undermine Trump’s 2016 victory.”
ABC’s World News Tonight was even more esoteric, painting Trump’s public remarks about Obama as having come out of thin air. Here was chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce: “Trump clearly frustrated by the Epstein story...baselessly accusing the former President of treason in the 2016 election...Trump falsely claiming Obama deliberately manufactured and politicized intelligence reports about Russian interference in the 2016 election.”
The CBS Evening News returned to it on July 23, but that was the last mention on the evening shows.
In the interest of transparency, the other flagship network news shows were marginally better.
The lead network morning shows — ABC’s Good Morning America, CBS Mornings, and NBC’s Today — combined for three minutes and 32 seconds with coverage limited to July 23 and 24.
We noted the dismissals from July 24 as CBS and NBC deployed the usual buzzwords and phrases to declare there was nothing to see, ignoring revelations such as a doctored Presidential Daily Brief from December 2016 and then-CIA Director John Brennan dismissing concerns about the Steele Dossier’s salaciousness.
The Sunday morning political talk shows dwarfed both the morning and evening shows with 16 minutes and 15 seconds on July 20 and 27.
The July 20 Face the Nation delivered nearly four minutes (3:57) on the Russiagate bombshells, but only for moderator Margaret Brennan to tag-team with Democrat Congressman Jim Himes (CT) to knock it down.
By July 27, ABC’s This Week spent another three minutes (3:08) on co-host Jonathan Karl and guest Stephen A. Smith ripping Gabbard and Trump (even though Smith had vouched days earlier for the legitimacy of the bombshells).
NewsBusters’s Jorge Bonilla had the takedown of that spinspoiling as well as the nine-plus minutes (9:10) on NBC’s Meet the Press in which Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) schooled moderator Kristen Welker for “sweeping this stuff under the rug.”
Noticeably, Graham was the only guest on the Sunday shows to defend Gabbard’s move.
The liberal media so often fail at genuine self-reflection and admissions of guilt. Rather, as the numbers show between the original probe and these new revelations, they’re far more interested in sticking their heads in the sand.