Between Friday morning and Wednesday morning, ABC, CBS, and NBC have giddily devoted 16 minutes and 38 seconds to House Republicans being ambushed at town halls with angry attendees lashing out over their support for President Trump, Elon Musk, and the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Naturally, however, less than four percent (or 36 seconds) speculated this latest example of a supposed nationwide groundswell against a conservative agenda was actually fraudulent, made up of crowds organized by far-left activist groups and even outside the House member’s district.
To add onto word last week from our friend Erick Erickson, the Free Beacon exposed the organizer of angry attendees at town hall held by Congressman Rick McCormick (R-GA) was a self-described “Democrat & Political Activist” and town halls nationwide were targeted by Indivisible and MoveOn, which are funded by, yes, George Soros.
ABC led the way with nine minutes and four seconds, with less than one percent (0.7 percent, or four seconds) acknowledging the boisterous haranguing might not actually be genuine.
World News Tonight anchor David Muir bragged on February 21 about “the heated moments in states across the country” with “voters packing town halls.”
Former Biden apple polisher Mary Bruce had seven different soundbites gushing over “Americans angry with President Trump’s sweeping layoffs and Elon Musk’s drive to slash government spending, packing raucous town halls” and “Republican[s]....starting to feel the heat” in Georgia, Kansas, and Oregon.
By the February 22 Good Morning America and World News Tonight, senior White House correspondent Selina Wang touted “angry Americans across the country from Georgia to Kansas are pushing back” against DOGE amid a litany of soundbites from McCormick’s townhall, including one calling Trump a “megalomaniac.”
ABC’s This Week co-host Martha Raddatz played McCormick soundbites as proof of a “grilling” Republicans received, but later conceded it might not be genuine: “[B]ut we saw a couple of videos over the week of pushback in those town halls. Now, whether they were Democrats, we — we don’t really know who they were.”
Senior political correspondent Rachel Scott joined in by the February 23 World News Tonight by leading into another angry woman shouting at Congressman Glenn Grothman (R-WI) before trumpeting “[v]oters showing up at town halls in some parts of the country over the last week to confront GOP lawmakers.”
Bruce returned for February 24’s World News Tonight with another astroturfed mob (click “expand”):
CONGRESSMAN MARK ALFORD (R-MO): I'll come back to you, okay? I promise.
BRUCE: Tonight, growing backlash after Elon Musk gave more than two million federal workers until midnight tonight to send an email listing what they've done in the last week or lose their jobs. In Belton, Missouri, long lines of people waiting to get into a town meeting for Republican Congressman Mark Alfred.
ALFORD: Elon Musk has contracts with the federal government. [CROWD HECKLING] But he is also, I think, doing an effective job — [INAUDIBLE]
ANGRY WOMAN #1 AT ALFORD TOWNHALL: Conflict of interest!
ALFORD: I know —
ANGRY WOMAN #1 AT ALFORD TOWNHALL: Show me, show me!
ALFORD: — a lot of people who don't want to see waste, abuse and fraud weeded out. Some of them here today.
ANGRY WOMAN #1 AT ALFORD TOWNHALL: I don't want him in charge of it.
And, on Tuesday, Scott deemed “tensions high” while Bruce insisted “[f]or nearly a week, Republican members of Congress have been getting pushback from their constituents.”
Shifting to NBC, they doled out six minutes and 35 seconds between Friday and Wednesday. Only eight percent (or 32 seconds) entertained the notion the anger was manufactured.
After Friday’s Today kicked it off, Lester Holt said on Nightly News the townhalls were a “growing” “backlash” as a lead-in to correspondent Garrett Haake deploying the same word alongside soundbites of townhalls held by McCormick and Congressman Scott Fitzgerald (R-WI).
February 22’s Nightly News trotted out correspondent Vaughn Hillyard to keep drilling the narrative into the minds of voters that DOGE has been met with, at best, “mixed reviews.”
Far-left White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor ventured out for Sunday Today and Nightly News to revel in her fellow liberals creating “pushbacks” and Americans “sounding off” amid soundbites from townhalls for Grothman and Congressman Pete Sessions (R-TX).
NBC’s Meet the Press featured rare instances of pushback.
After having cheered Republicans being “forced to defend the cuts to voters at town halls,” moderator Kristen Welker faced down Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) pointing out the organized nature of the anger with new Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin having “openly admitted on MSNBC just yesterday that they were manufacturing these protests. They were bussing in armies to manufacture these protests.”
In the panel segment, Politico’s Jonathan Martin cited the “pushback” as proof of Americans realizing DOGE affects “actual people and their actual jobs” and was backed up by NBC’s Melanie Zanona describing frustration from House Republicans for facing “angry constituents[.]”
Hoover Institution’s Lanhee Chen provided a reality check: “Look, I think we have to question who some of these folks are in these town halls, right? Some of the reporting has said that these are activists who never liked Donald Trump, who were never in favor of Donald Trump, so, I mean, let’s see how this all plays out.”
NBC joined ABC in keeping the days old clips alive. Haake returned for Monday’s Today to regurgitate the “growing outrage” and an angry woman at a Sessions town hall demanding he help “get control of the Congress back from the executive and stop hurting our constituents.”
As for the Alford town hall, he celebrated Alford on Tuesday’s Nightly News for “supporting the President’s efforts to downsize the federal government but criticizing Musk’s approach.”
Chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles was on Tuesday’s Today to salute the “backlash at town halls,” but passed along in each hour that Alford believed the “organized protesters” included “agitators from outside his district.”
To their credit, CBS and its flagship newscasts — CBS Mornings, the CBS Evening News, and Face the Nation — perhaps saw the fake news in this. They were silent until Tuesday with 59 seconds on CBS Mornings.
Co-host and Democrat donor Gayle King claimed the country is “very frustrated” and “showing up at town halls across the country demanding that Congress stand up for them.”
Senior White House correspondent Weijia Jiang grasped onto this na rrative, saying DOGE has been “anger” and “confusion” that combined “to boil over at those congressional town halls.”
She peddled the soundbites from the Alford and McCormick town halls that ABC and NBC dutifully peddled as authentic. Amid those, she declared Americans as “lashing out” and, like ABC had also done, suggesting they’ve worked because “McCormick now says there should be studies on the impact of mass firings.”
In contrast to their cheering now and Democratic anger in 2017 over ObamaCare repeal and replacement discussions, they deemed Tea Party groups confronting Democrats as fraudulent. ABC claimed the protesters were “cheered on by Fox News and talk radio” and thus “not a real grassroots phenomenon at all.” Over at CBS, they argued “fresh polling” has proven the “passion” wasn’t real while NBC diagnosed these patriots as “not...as home-grown as it may seem[.]”
When there’s anger against a policy the liberal media want to see foisted upon Americans, it’s astroturfing. But when they themselves manufacture dissent only a month into a Republican presidency, they view it as cries from the huddled masses, yearning to breathe free.