MRC Graphic How can you tell if an interview's tough or soft? When interviewing Trump, the host will interrupt repeatedly to challenge him. When interviewing a Democrat, the answers can go on for 300 words without interruption -- a small speech. Look at NBC's Meet The Press host Kristen Welker badgering Trump, and it's nothing like her softball session with Abdul el-Sayed.MRC Business Associate Editor Joseph Vazquez and longtime NewsBusters contributor Mark Finkelstein joined the show to discuss the weekend in politics.On Sunday, Welker began by asking two questions to help Abdul negotiate out of embarrassment for earlier comments attacking Barack Obama -- who's now coming to Michigan to campaign for him. His first two answers were both over 320 words. Later, when Welker asked about his "hurt people hurt people" excuse for a man attacking a Michigan synagogue, his answer was 382 words. When Welker tried to help him deny his family had any connections to the terrorism-backing Muslim Brotherhood, one answer was 479 words. Also: On CNN on Sunday, Jake Tapper might have thought he was going to put the DHS Secretary on the spot. Instead, Markwayne Mullin unloaded a fact wagon on State of the Union.  The topic was ICE's operation against Oscar Belgal, an illegal Dominican immigrant wanted on multiple charges. Incredibly, Tapper rushed to defend the illegal immigrant and his fears. On his MS NOW show PoliticsNation on Saturday, longtime ambulance-chaser Rev. Al Sharpton added radical DSA Congresswoman-In-Waiting Darializa Avila Chevalier to the trash-ICE effort. She wanted the New York City police commissioner to resign because...she listed the illegal alien's criminal offenses in a press conference. The elitist media are highly suspicious of Christianity, unless a Democrat decides to use it as a political strategy, as in Rev. Raphael Warnock or James Talarico. Jon Karl of ABC traveled to Kansas and met with Senate candidate Adam Hamilton for This Week. The purpose of this interview was to establish Hamilton as a reasonable centrist. Karl asked Hamilton to respond to Vice President Vance charging that Hamilton displayed "left-wing radicalism dressed in the skin suit of our religion."Finally, the content cops at NewsGuard actually called out partisan content factories like Courier Newsroom -- a lefty fake news collective funded by George Soros to the tune of at least $20 million — and how it has been seeping into the messaging of a litany of campaign ads used by Democrat “candidates and political action committees.” This week, the outfit reportedly “identified seven video ads for key races in Iowa, Ohio, and Alabama featuring on-screen citations of” what it dubs as “pink slime websites.”Enjoy the video podcast below. The audio is here.  

MS NOW/SnapStream MS NOW’s Morning Joe has a new promotional advertisement out with less than a month to go until the midterm elections. The interview seemed proud of the liberal morning show’s interviews with some candidates, like Michigan’s Democratic nominee for Senate, Abdul El-Sayed, and the Florida Democratic Senate candidate Angie Nixon, a member of the DSA. The short ad began with clips of co-host Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski reading the names of four selected candidates.Scarborough began, “Abdul El-Sayed.” Brzezinski added, “Cait Conley,” the Democrat House candidate facing current GOP Representative Mike Lawler in New York.In the El-Sayed interview featured in the ad, Scarborough said criticism of El-Sayed’s relationship with Hasan Piker was “bullshit,” as he also asked El-Sayed, “Do you fish?”  A new ‘Morning Joe’ promo on MS NOW seems to be proud of the liberal morning show’s softball interviews with Democratic midterm candidates, with the line “The Midterms Start on Morning Joe.”The ad also features far-left candidates Abdul El-Sayed and Angie Nixon. pic.twitter.com/Umc1jbH4HY— Nick (@nspin310) October 12, 2026 The next two candidates introduced were the main Democrat nominees in Texas, as Brzesinki introduced “James Talarcio,” and Scarborough did the same for “Gina Hinojosa.”Laughably, the promo on screen read “The Questions That Matter,” before a clip of Scarborough played when he asked El-Sayed, “What is it that’s hurting people in Michigan the most?”The network ad then declared, “The Midterms Start on Morning Joe,” as co-host Willie Geist, employed by both MS NOW and NBC, threw a softball to the Florida DSA-affiliated candidate for Senate: “What is, do you think, the power of your message?The placement of the DSA candidate in the promo was notable, especially after, back in June, Morning Joe downplayed the DSA after the victory of far-left candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier in a New York Democratic House primary.Just a few days later in June, the morning program spent nearly 20 minutes on the rise of the DSA and its controversies.In August, the MS NOW program, acting as if it were an arm of the Democratic National Committee, then shifted to urge Democrats to unite and support the far-left, as co-host Jonathan Lemire used the phrase, “Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good.”Notably, the advertisement omitted the many softballs with former Maine Democratic nominee for Senate, Graham Platner, that occurred before he had to drop out over mounting controversies and allegations.In May, a Platner interview largely ignored the then-candidate's controversies, like his Nazi tattoo, in what could be described as a love-fest. Scarborough then even related himself to Platner, and said, “It's what happened to me. I actually, I had party leaders working against me around the clock. Said I was too radical to get elected.” After the allegations began to sink Platner’s campaign, Brzezinski grilled a Politico reporter who helped break the opening allegations. Scarborough and Brzezinski then warned Democrats about the candidate switcheroo and continued to defend Platner until his name got out of the news cycle.Morning Joe is definitely the place to go for Democrats if they want a complete softball interview before the midterm elections.The transcript for the promo is below. Click "expand":MS NOW Morning Joe PromoOctober 12, 20261:59:56 PM Eastern(15 seconds)[Music Playing]JOE SCARBOROUGH: Abdul El-Sayed MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Cait Conley.James Talarico.SCARBOROUGH: Gina Hinojosa.[On Screen: The Questions That Matter]What is it that’s hurting people in Michigan the most?[On Screen: The Midterms Start on Morning Joe]WILLIE GIEST: What is, do you think, the power of your message?Morning Joe Proud of Midterm Candidate Softballs in New Show Promo(...)

With about three weeks to go before a critical midterm election, you can always count on the Elitist Media to project Democrats in the best possible light. Such was the case for NBC. as Kristen Welker sat down with Michigan Democrat Senate nominee Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed, for what amounted to a ritual warm tongue bath.The most notable part of the interview is what it omits: El-Sayed’s loudest surrogate, champagne socialist streamer Hasan Piker. Welker did not ask a single question about El-Sayed’s relationship with Piker or about any of Piker’s past controversial statements. Neither did Welker address Piker’s presence at El-Sayed’s primary victory party. They addressed the elephant in the room by pretending it wasn’t there at all.Instead, Welker and El-Sayed devoted a significant part of the interview to walking back El-Sayed’s past swipes at Former President Barack Obama, which occupied six out of the 32 minutes of the full interview uploaded to YouTube. Watch as El-Sayed goes from calling Obama a failure to all but calling him “Daddy:” Abdulrahman Mohammed El-Sayed, 2012: Obama is a failureEl-Sayed, 2026: Obama is my Daddy pic.twitter.com/mGmMSP6kSC— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 11, 2026 KRISTEN WELKER: You have been critical, though, of President Obama after voting for his reelection in 2012. You wrote, quote, "Obama was not the right choice. He just wasn't the wrong one. This leader has perpetrated war, violated our civil liberties, deported more people from our shores than any other president before him, and the list of his failures goes on." Do you still see President Obama's presidency as a failure?ABDUL EL-SAYED:  Well, we've lived through two Trump terms now. So, look, I know that President Obama was handed a really difficult set of circumstances, and he did his best. I also want to step back. Kristen, are your parents still with us? WELKER: They are. Thank goodness. EL-SAYED: Thank goodness. Mine are too. And I think about my dad. I wouldn't have my life before my dad's efforts so grateful for him. At the same time, there's a lot of things about my dad I’d do differently, right? And it's because when you intensely appreciate somebody who's done so much to make something that you're doing possible, you're both going to see the best of them, and you're also going to see the things that you'd want to change. I can't say how much I appreciate President Obama. I've read everything he's written twice. And it's because he was the president of my 20s. I mean, it was the first time I ever saw myself in politics. I remember when he gave that 2004 commencement speech- excuse me, DNC speech. And I’ve never seen politics look like that. He showed me something in myself I would never have seen without him. I mean, he has run the elegance, the grace, the commitment under pressure, the- just the basket of terrible things he was handed by the Bush era. Whether it was a failing economy, wars, a healthcare system that was deeply broken, and the way that he handled it all. Now, that is so much appreciation for what he showed me and me, what he showed our country, the fact that he went first. And also, there are so many things that I point to and say, I wish we could have that again. But my job is to step up and pick up the baton and run as hard as I can. Welker came in for some mild pushback but El-Sayed was allowed to run free, volunteering his unsolicited support for Obama’s ill-fated Cuba deal: Left on the @MeetThePress cutting room floor: Abdul El-Sayed gushing over Obama's Cuba deal pic.twitter.com/hnTQFttDlH— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 11, 2026 The exchange on Obama was followed up by Medicare for All. Here, Welker gave El-Sayed some very mild follow-up after he offered up his own version of “if you like your healthcare you can keep your healthcare” and immediately backtracked by saying it was up to the insurance companies.  The interview then covered, in order: tariffs (“NAFTA is a cancer”), impeachment, John Fetterman, his “hurt people hurt people” justification of the jihadist that attacked Temple Israel, and a rebuttal of Mike Rogers linking him to the Muslim Brotherhood. The edited-for-broadcast-on-NBC portion of the interview cuts off here. Welker then proceeds to ask El-Sayed whether billionaires should exist. El-Sayed responds to that socialist dog whistle by proclaiming support for a tax on wealth over $100 million dollars. Abdul El-Sayed: I am not a socialistAlso El-Sayed: I support a tax on wealth over $100MInteresting what gets left on the cutting room floor at @MeetThePress pic.twitter.com/uygadZhbW6— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 11, 2026 WELKER: I have a couple more questions and I know we're almost out of time. I do want to talk about the economy. You have said “I'd rather have an economy that makes a thousand millionaires than one billionaire. Do you think billionaires should exist?”EL-SAYED: I think billionaires should pay their fair share back into the system. I believe that means we have to pass a wealth tax. I think when you start taxing billionaire wealth, you have the opportunity to return trillions of dollars back to the economy to allow other people to participate.I think right now about kids going to school in Detroit, they're going to school in buildings that look like they did 50 years ago. I don't know that they have the opportunities to be able to go and become that millionaire. So what should we do? I think we should tax billionaire wealth, take some of that money, bring it back to public education, take some of that money, build schools and roads, provide health care, provide childcare. I'm a capitalist, but I believe that too many people can't participate in capitalism because what we have right now is actually corporatism. And if we're not serious about actually making sure everybody can participate in capitalism, then we're not serious about capitalism. WELKER: You talk about a wealth tax and some people get nervous that that's going to impact them. EL-SAYED: Well, if you’re a billionaire you should get nervous. That's going to impact them.WELKER: Where's the cutoff and what's the percentage? EL-SAYED: $100 million, right?WELKER: Only people with $100 million.EL-SAYED: If you were to tax people with $100 million or more, a wealth tax. We’re not even talking about a serious wealth- I just want to think this through, okay? Imagine you tax based on wealth based on what your money made last year. If you're a billionaire, you don't make your money off of the money you earn working. You make your money off of your money. So if you're a billionaire earning 10% on your billion, you're making $100 million. So even if we tax you at 8%, you know what you still made? $20 million, doing nothing. You're going to be okay. You’re going to be okay. I think the rest of us need to know that our kids get good schools. We need to know that our roads and bridges work. We need to know that we can actually participate in this thing so that those kids in those schools in Detroit can actually say, you know what? Someday, I'm going to start a business and I'm going to be a millionaire. This is a moment where a Republican under similar circumstances would have been grilled. El-Sayed certainly warranted a follow-up here after screaming from the rooftops that he is not a socialist. But Welker offered El-Sayed no pushback on the wealth tax, instead going straight to court-packing: In the full interview posted online, @kwelkernbc forwarded another Kamala Harris proposal to @AbdulElSayed: “Former Vice President Harris has called on Democrats to expand the Supreme Court from nine to thirteen justices the next time Democrats have full control of government. Would you vote to expand the Supreme Court?” (Answer: Yes.) FWIW, this question came before the “too big to fail” one which aired on the broadcast Meet the Press.— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) October 11, 2026 This was followed by an exchange on whether 2026 needed to be “too big to rig,” which proves all the caterwauling about election denialism to be hypocritical (this portion made it to air). NBC’s @kwelkernbc relayed to @AbdulElSayed some Kamala Harris fearmongering: “You recently campaigned with former Vice President Harris, who said ‘Democrats have got to turn out the votes in large numbers, we’ve got to be too big to rig.’ Do you agree that Democrats need to make the election, quote, ‘too big to rig’?”— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) October 11, 2026 There was a question on 2028 which El-Sayed deflected and, finally, the big “is America ready for a Muslim President:” “Finally, last question: Do you think that America is ready for a Muslim President?” – @kwelkernbc to @AbdulElSayed in portion of interview posted online but not aired on @MeetThePress https://t.co/93ZKtZ6dnx— Brent Baker 🇺🇲🇺🇦 🇮🇱 (@BrentHBaker) October 11, 2026 This was not an interview, so much as a friendly exchange of ideas and an opportunity for El-Sayed to perform significant image rehab ahead of the midterm election. There was never a wide-eyed outburst from Welker here, no cutting El-Sayed off, no squinting and pointing at him with her pen and no seven followups to a tough question (there were no tough questions) with her customary “to put a fine point on it.” Par for the course for the Elitist Media, still putting their thumbs on the scale in order to affect the balance of power in Washington.

POLL: What was the worst media quote of the week? (Vote below)  Watch the Worst Quotes Here! pic.twitter.com/cTOxNx6bad— MRC Video (@mrcvideo) October 8, 2026  [Language Warning]NOMINEES:  New York Times’s Michelle Cottle Blames Trump in Cornell Rape Case“We can go to the president for this one [Cornell rape case]. I mean, we are in a moment in this culture where the glorification of being thuggish and swaggering and mistreating women is kind of making you a cool kid.”— New York Times Opinion writer Michelle Cottle discussing Cornell University rape case as aired on ABC’s This Week, October 4. Robert De Niro to Donald Trump: Keep Your F***ing Hands Off Our Vote!“When the weak and spineless Republicans in the House and Senate won’t protect our rights. What do we say to them? Keep your f***ing hands off our votes! When the Supreme Court rubber stamps voter suppression? What do we say to them? Hands off our vote! When Trump’s Department of Justice threatens election officials, demands voter rolls, and seizes ballots. What do we say to them? F***ing hands off our vote! When masked and armed ICE thugs storm our polling places? What do we say to them? Keep your f***ing hands off our vote! And when that coward, that f***ing piece of sh*t Donald Trump tries to take our voice and power away. What do we tell him? [Keep] your f***ing hands off our vote!”— Actor Robert De Niro at Indivisible’s Protect the Vote event, October 4.  Mark Ruffalo: We Got To Get This Dumb-Ass Out of Office!“We gotta get this dumb-ass, fool-ass, tired-ass, lame-ass, duck-ass out of office! We got to make him a lame duck! We have to stop his policies now! Another two years of this, and who knows what he’ll be doing? He’s calling to throw Democrats out of the country, and he means it!...They’re gonna try and stop us from taking our country back, and we’re not gonna let them! Trump, we’re not letting ya! Hands off! Hands off! Hands off! Hands off our fucking vote!...Yeah! I’m gonna Hulk out!” — Actor Mark Ruffalo at Indivisible’s Protect the Vote event, October 4.    Sponsored by James P. Jimirro

Screenshot via Real America's Voice/Snapstream How much money should any one person have?When Elon Musk became the world’s first trillionaire, people got mad.“He will own everything!” claims a popular YouTuber. “He will own your house ... your country ... your government.”Comedian Bill Maher, lately a voice of reason, asked, “Would it be crazy to have a law that said, ‘You can’t go above 1% of gross domestic product?!’”Actually, yes. My new video explains why it would be crazy.People who hate the very rich tend to assume that there’s a finite amount of wealth. So if Musk has a trillion dollars, everyone else must have less.“That’s simply not true,” explains business ethics professor Chris Freiman. In a free market, businesses create new wealth, because consumers give up dollars only “because they got stuff that they valued more in return.”Car buyers voluntarily give Musk money because he created a car they value more than other cars.Likewise, “Steve Jobs became a billionaire, but the rest of the world got a billion iPhones,” says Freiman. Since the exchange was voluntary, “that seems like something to celebrate, not resent.”Even Bernie Sanders understands that. Sort of.Years ago, he said, “Nobody should earn more than one million dollars!”But then he became a millionaire. Asked about that, he replied: “Write a bestselling book, you can be a millionaire, too!”“If we had capped success in the past,” notes Freiman, “We probably wouldn’t have the iPhone, Netflix, DoorDash, Amazon, Spotify ...”Or robot vacuums, air fryers, Uber, Waze, etc. We are all better off thanks to the ingenuity (and often greed) of millionaires and billionaires.No one forces us to give them money. We give it to them because they created things that we value more than the dollars we give up.Yet when Musk became a trillionaire, a YouTube channel with more than 2 million subscribers proposed that America “tax every penny in net worth of somebody who has over $999 million.”That would deter people from becoming billionaires. But why is that good? Consumers are better off when Musk makes money.No one is forced to buy his cars or satellite internet. We pay because his products are better than what we had before.OK, it’s true that sometimes we are forced to give Musk money. But that’s because our government forces us to pay for NASA, and NASA discovered that Musk sends things into space much more efficiently than NASA ever could. Musk saves taxpayer money.When government spends money, by contrast, I cringe.Congress took billions of your dollars to build electric vehicle chargers. After more than three years, just 384 were open to the public.In that same time period, Tesla built more than 35,000.“Who is a better steward of resources?” asks Freiman. “Entrepreneurs or government officials?”Entrepreneurs, without question, because they put their own money on the line. People spend their own money more carefully than governments spend other people’s money.Even the greediest business faces a test government doesn’t: Consumers can say no.I won’t defend all billionaires.Some get rich by cheating.Bernard Madoff stole billions by lying to investors. Sam Bankman-Fried, running the FTX cryptocurrency exchange, defrauded customers and investors.Others, like Vladimir Putin and Fidel Castro, get rich through political power. They force people to give them money.“I will not defend Fidel Castro,” says Freiman. When he died, his fortune was estimated at $900 million. “He got it through coercion. That’s a problem. But if you make $900 million creating and providing goods and services to people at prices, then the sky’s the limit.”Where there is honest capitalism — riches earned without government favors (crony capitalism) — everyone is better off.That’s the distinction critics of billionaires miss.The important question isn’t: How much money does someone have?It’s: How did they get it?If they got rich through fraud, theft, coercion or government favors, prosecute the fraud, and end the favors.If they got rich because people voluntarily buy something they created, celebrate them. They make us richer.I hope America has more trillionaires.Every Tuesday at JohnStossel.com, Stossel posts a new video about the battle between government and freedom. He is the author of “Government Gone Wild: Exposing the Truth Behind the Headlines.”

Atlantic writer David Brooks, the pundit placing himself on the "rightward edge of the leftward tendency," is half of the PBS News Hour’s traditional Friday evening political discussion. He offered rare criticism of his media colleagues on the September 25 program: “We have got to reestablish some distance from the Democratic Party….They're not people we root for. They're not people we're spin doctors for.”But with just a month to go before the 2026 midterms, the News Hour in September established they are spin doctors for the Democrats. Their coverage has a clear pattern of aiding the Democratic Party in its quest to win seats and control of the House and Senate on Election Day, mostly by hammering Republicans with negative spin.Surprisingly little time was spent on individual candidates or issues apart from electoral process controversies, such as President Trump’s call for reform of mail-in voting. Trump himself was the main midterm issue, and every Republican up for election was tied to the president’s perceived failures and unpopularity. A study of the News Hour from September 1 to September 30 underlines the pattern.  Image MRC Graphic KEY FINDINGS:■ Ruin for Republicans, Hope for Democrats: From September 1 to September 30, the GOP received 94% negative spin vs. 6% positive spin. The Democrats received far more balanced coverage, 53% negative, 47% positive. The Republicans drew 102 negative evaluations compared to just six positive statements. The Democrats received only 15 percent of the comments -- 10 were negative, nine were positive. With far fewer evaluations, the Democrats still drew more positive statements, nine to six. This doesn't include purely "horse race" or objective polling analysis of Trump or Republican candidates, which was almost completely negative. ■ Cross-Partisan Pattern: PBS reveled in news of Republicans crossing Trump, either through disagreement or through endorsing Democrats. They touted when "lifelong Republican" politicians endorsed Democrats, or when they made ads criticizing Trump policies as going too far.■ Criticism of Trump on mail-in balloting dominated political coverage, with nearly half an hour of negative coverage. PBS was overtly hostile to the Trump administration's efforts to prevent illegal aliens from voting my mail. ■ Bias by Omission: PBS ignored increasing Democratic ideological radicalism, such as the rise of the Democratic Socialists of America. "Public" broadcasting has proven itself incapable of finding anyone or anything extreme on the Left.  Crossing Party Lines in Only One DirectionThe PBS News Hour displayed a one-way cross-party pattern of coverage, with ample space granted to Republicans turning against Trump or endorsing Democrats.On September 18, co-anchor Geoff Bennett broadcast a campaign ad by Florida Republican Rep. Maria Salazar: “She shot this ad that`s up on the airwaves now in Florida just weeks ahead of the midterms, breaking with the Trump administration over his immigration agenda.” Bennett ran a clip of the ad showing Salazar saying, in part, “Mr. President, some of your immigration enforcement efforts have gone too far.”On September 21, co-anchor Amna Nawaz named other GOP turncoats. After mentioning the Salazar ad, she recited: “South Dakota’s Republican secretary of state, Monae Johnson, previously refused to acknowledge that former President Joe Biden won in 2020, this weekend endorsed the Democratic candidate, Terrence Davis, to replace her. And all of this, of course, follows Karl Rove we reported on last week, the former adviser to George W. Bush, saying he will vote for a Democrat in a state race in Texas.”A friendly interview by Bennett with former Republican Kansas Gov. Bill Graves appeared September 23. Graves is a retired GOP politician who now endorses Democrats, a detail PBS didn’t mention when Graves endorsed the Democrat running against the sitting Republican senator in Kansas. Bennett also recited a list of anti-Trump elected officials during the interview.The only occasion in which that polarity was reversed came in a September 10 clip from Democratic Sen. John Fetterman of Pennsylvania’s surprise appearance by video at the Republican Party’s midterm convention in Dallas. Fetterman said, in part, “We will work with President Trump to fight and defend the steel way of life right here in the Steel Valley.” White House correspondent Liz Landers also pointed out that same night that “the upper decks definitely had empty seats” when Trump spoke. Mail-in Ballots PBS News Hour publicity photo By far the most-covered midterm-related issue on the News Hour was the controversy over Trump’s executive order to overhaul the use of mail-in ballots in the name of stopping potential voter fraud. The News Hour devoted a wholly negative 29 minutes and 37 seconds of intense coverage in total, complete with interviewing a lawyer representing an anonymous whistleblower, and two full stories on consecutive nights.Trump’s war on illegal immigration (as it related to the midterms) clocked in next at 8 minutes, 47 seconds of coverage, followed by pushback to the building of data centers to facilitate Artificial Intelligence (A.I.) at 5 minutes, 14 seconds. 100% of the evaluative comments on those three issues were negative against Republicans.The News Hour was aggressively negative on Trump pushing measures to ensure only eligible citizens could vote by mail. The story led the September 1 show, with a warning from co-anchor Bennett: “On the News Hour tonight: A whistle-blower alleges the U.S. Postal Service is rushing to roll out an untested mail ballot system that could jeopardize votes in the midterm elections.” In a connected interview with Jacob Bogage, White House correspondent for Reuters, Bogage warned darkly: “This new system would inject the federal government into the voting process of every city, town, village, and hamlet in the United States. And there are constitutional protections, frankly, against that.”The next night, Bennett followed up: “We speak with the attorney for a whistle-blower who alleges the U.S. Postal Service is rushing a mail ballot system that could affect millions of midterm votes.” This line from attorney David Kligerman surely delighted PBS: “It’s not every day that someone comes forward to blow the whistle on a major government scandal.”On September 23 PBS cited its own poll, conducted with NPR and Marist University, to fortify its doomsaying over Republican prospects and to further argue the GOP was wrong to be concerned with mail-in balloting. Congressional reporter Lisa Desjardins: “It is Republicans who see the fraud. We have not seen any evidence. In fact, to the contrary, our election systems have proven that there is very little fraud, from what we know.” For Democrats, Bias by OmissionWhile the Democratic Party’s own News Hour coverage was almost 50-50 positive and negative, Democratic candidates benefited from bias by omission, as the party received far less scrutiny than did Trump and the GOP. The lack of attention particularly benefited the Fidel Castro-honoring, Hamas-supporting Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), who have several candidates running for office, as well as other radical Democrats like Michigan Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who received virtually no scrutiny of his anti-Semitic controversies and associations.In a September 22 discussion with Democratic strategist Joel Payne, Desjardins noted, somewhat vaguely, that El-Sayed had spoken at DSA events and “has said some things that most Americans don’t agree with [such as] an openness to some form of defunding the police.” But she shied away from addressing El-Sayed’s ties to leftist streamer Hasan Piker and antisemitism. After running a clip from a GOP campaign ad describing Piker as “a terrorist sympathizer who said America deserved 9/11,” Desjardins sounded apologetic for even bringing it up.Lisa Desjardins: OK, that’s particularly a reference to the controversial leftist streamer Hasan Piker, who did campaign in the primaries with El-Sayed, but El-Sayed has distanced himself. He’s gone so far to really stress he disavows antisemitism in all forms.Co-anchor Nawaz even spoke positively about the DSA on September 7 in an interview with California’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom: Amna Nawaz: You saw how many wins DSA candidates, Democratic Socialist candidates, were able to win, Donavan McKinney in Michigan, Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania, Abdul El-Sayed in Michigan. He doesn`t identify as DSA, but was sort of aligned with them. If you have these candidates and this platform that is clearly animating the base, energizing turnout, should more of those ideas be worked into the broader Democratic platform? YouTube screenshot On September 18, the subject was Democrat James Talarico, who has a history of inflammatory statements about religion and transgender issues. Bennett led into Landers’ trip to Texas to report on high hopes for Talarico: “But, this year, Republican divisions, political scandals, rising prices, and local fights over big tech are giving Democrats new hope of an upset in the U.S. Senate race there.” Landers compared Talarico, “running as a moderate, guided by his Christian faith,” to his Republican opponent, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, described by one voter she interviewed as “kind of dirty right now.”Even the rare negative comments on Democrats sometimes had caveats, with Landers portraying Talarico as having been unfairly attacked: “But his critics have forced him to walk back past controversial comments on social issues,” including Talarico’s claim that “God is nonbinary.” The News Hour never noted Talarico’s anti-scientific take on biology, like his 2021 claim that “there are six really common biological sexes,” and never caught up with a resurfaced clip from Talarico calling capitalism an “oppressive” system that should be “dismantled.”Rare Exceptions to the RuleAmong the few positive mentions of Republicans was a back-handed compliment from Brooks, who on September 11 said he was surprised to enjoy Secretary of Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s speech at the two-day Republican midterm convention: “He really tried to describe why so many working-class voters who voted for his uncle and his dad in the ‘60s, then became Reagan Democrats under -- in the `80s, and then became Trump Republicans in 2016….it was a very persuasive and to my Republican friends a very compelling story.”In fact, four of the six positive GOP comments originated from the midterm convention, including generic statements from voters voicing support for Republican politicians JD Vance and Marco Rubio. METHODOLOGY:MRC staffers tallied all clearly positive and negative statements from non-partisan sources made on the PBS News Hour in the month of September 2026, including: statements by co-anchors Geoff Bennett and Amna Nawaz; the “Politics Monday” duo Amy Walter of the Cook Political Report and Tamara Keith of National Public Radio; the Friday political team of David Brooks (National Review’s Ramesh Ponnuru filling in once) and MS NOW host Jonathan Capehart; all PBS reporters and eligible guests/talking heads. This excludes coverage that merely reflects the partisan back-and-forth of the campaign, in order to isolate the spin being imparted by the networks themselves (unless there are cross-party breaks, in which a Republican offers a positive statement about a Democrat, or vice versa; those are counted). It also excludes “horse race assessments” about a candidate or party’s prospects for winning or losing that are not intertwined with another issue.

Joe Scarborough Elise Jordan Morning Joe 10-6-26 When Morning Joe concludes its run one day, a new career opportunity looms for Joe Scarborough: Democratic campaign consultant. Joe's been at it for some time now in a volunteer [we presume!] capacity. Last month, for example, we caught him suggesting a bumper sticker slogan for Angie Nixon, the democratic socialist Florida senatorial candidate.Scarborough was back at it on Tuesday's show. This time, his "client" was Abdul El-Sayed, the Democratic senatorial candidate from Michigan. When Scarborough heard from Elise Jordan that El-Sayed is having a tough time with Jewish Democrats in Michigan, Scarborough had a brilliant suggestion: go on a synagogue tour! Elise Jordan had sat down with two groups of conflicted Michigan Democrats. Her takeaway was that black Democrats in Wayne County are persuadable, and that a campaign appearance by President Obama alongside El-Sayed should be huge. The Oakland County Jewish Democrats, she said, are a different case. "There's very little that will make them budge at this point." A clip was played of a Jewish Democrat in Michigan saying that her daughter, who attends law school in Detroit, has to hide being Jewish. The woman said she might vote for Republican Mike Rogers, and apologized to her fellow Democrats: "Sorry, guys." Another member of the group told her not to apologize. "You deserve to vote and be comfortable." Jordan said the line that kept coming up in the group was El-Sayed's own video after the March attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, when a man rammed a pickup into the synagogue while a school was in session. "[El-Sayed] had in it the line, 'hurt people hurt people.' That came up repeatedly. They fear that he is not the ally that they need for Israel policy, but also they're really concerned about antisemitism and feel threatened right now, especially in the aftermath of that attack." But not to worry, Abdul! Consultant Scarborough has the solution! "Just the politician in me, I hear people talking about me that way, 'I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks in synagogues. I'm going to go around. I'm going to let people see me face to face, let them understand who I am. Job one will be making your daughter feel safe at law school, making your children feel safe when they go to fifth grade, making your grandmother and grandfather feel safe walking down the streets of Detroit or elsewhere in Michigan. That's what I would do.'" Problem: the first thing El-Sayed did after condemning the Temple Israel attack was to feel the pain of the man who carried it out: "hurt people hurt people."   El-Sayed Consultant Scarborough Tells Him: Go Campaign in Synagogues! pic.twitter.com/3SW3sBNW7j— Mark Finkelstein (@markfinkelstein) October 6, 2026 Scarborough then half-withdrew the advice. Jordan had been in the room, he said, and it sounded as if she were saying don't bother with the synagogue tour: "even that won't make a difference." Jordan didn't quite say that. She said a round of synagogue visits might still create "some headway." What those voters want to hear, she said, is simpler than a listening tour, and El-Sayed has not been willing to say it straight: that Israel has a right to exist.Scarborough's plan is two weeks in synagogues and a promise that safety comes first. Jordan's report is that the candidate still answers the basic question as to Israel's right to exist with a "yes, but." The mother whose daughter is forced to hide her Judaism at a Detroit law school is unlikely to be reassured if El-Sayed adopts Scarborough's synagogue shtick. Oddly, one thing that wasn't mentioned in the clip of the Jewish focus group, or in Jordan's description of it, was El-Sayed's close association with Hasan Piker, someone who has called for the elimination of the state of Israel. Here's the transcript. MS NOW Morning Joe 10/6/26 6:31 am EDTMICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC JEWISH FOCUS GROUP MEMBER: My daughter goes to University of Detroit-Mercy. She's in her second year of law school, and she has to hide being Jewish. And it's a hard thing to say. When October 7th came, horrible for her, lots of tears. I may go to Mike Rogers. Sorry, guys. SECOND MICHIGAN DEMOCRATIC JEWISH FOCUS GROUP MEMBER: It's okay. You should not apologize. No, you should not apologize. You deserve to vote and be comfortable. ELISE JORDAN: So these were two of the most conflicted group of voters that I've ever sat down with. Now, I think the Wayne County Democrats, I think they will come along. And I think that President Obama coming and campaigning with Abdul El-Sayed is going to be huge. And I do think at the end of the day, that group of voters, they're still persuadable, and they just need to be introduced. Now, the Oakland County Jewish Democrats, there's very little that will make them budge at this point. The aftermath of the Temple Israel attack back in West Bloomfield in March. And then Abdul El-Sayed made, he had did a video, and he had in it the line, "hurt people will hurt people." That came up repeatedly. They fear that he is not the ally that they need for Israel policy, but also they're really concerned about antisemitism and feel threatened right now, especially in the aftermath of that attack. JOE SCARBOROUGH: You know, Elise, you know, just the politician in me, I hear people talking about me that way, I'm going to spend the next couple of weeks in synagogues. I'm going to go around. I'm going to let people see me face to face, let them understand who I am. We understand that, you know, job one will be making your daughter feel safe at law school, making your children feel safe when they go to fifth grade, making your grandmother and grandfather feel safe walking down the streets of Detroit or elsewhere in Michigan. That's what I would do. But, my gosh, you were in the room and it actually sounds like you're basically saying, don't bother, even that won't make a difference. JORDAN: I think he could make some headway, still. These voters really want to hear just unequivocally that Israel has a right to exist. And the question has been posed to El-Sayed on numerous occasions. And he does give a version of saying, yes, but, and he goes into democracy, and that all citizens need to be able to vote. And he gives an answer that is not as straightforward as these voters expect and, frankly, need to hear to feel safe these days.

With less than a month to go before the midterm election, the Elitist Media have fabricated a new hoax to play with and it’s a doozy, taking a portion of a statement from President Trump out of context to suggest that he’d be fine with letting the homicidal Iranian regime bomb Los Angeles and San Diego. In CNN’s case, some of their hosts do so even after the network’s own fact-check.Our Curtis Houck memorialized the initial pounce, but imagine my shock when none other than Daniel Dale popped out of a box of Tim Horton’s in order to correct the record: This isn’t a direct quote from Trump, and I very much don’t think it’s a correct paraphrase. Trump has repeatedly argued that the consequences of the war, like higher gas prices, are a small price to pay compared to what an unchecked Iran could allegedly do. Last night, in especially rambling and incomplete fashion, he 1) claimed high prices are temporary and suggested they’re “artificial”; 2) contrasted that to the damage of Iran supposedly taking out a city; 3) and then, in especially confusing style, repeated his old point that “this,” as in the consequences of the war, is a small price to pay to avoid something like a a city being wiped out. It’s Trump’s fault you kinda have to be steeped in TrumpRallySpeak to know what he was saying last night, and of course you can say it’s inappropriate regardless for the president to casually float the possibility of a city being wiped out, but the context exists and is important.— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) October 6, 2026 The Elitist Media continued to push the L.A.-San Diego lie, notwithstanding a hallowed fact-check from one of their own. The lie even spread to CNN’s prime time block. Watch Lulu García-Navarro of The New York Times, sitting in for Abby Phillip on NewsNight as she titters her way through both sides of Trump’s statement: Hours after CNN's own Trump-hostile fact-checker determined Trump didn't call for Iran to wipe L.A. and San Diego out, CNN (sub) hosts are still suggesting he did. @ScottJenningsKY and @jasonrantz promptly shot this bad-faith frame down. pic.twitter.com/rkFU1Q7iWi— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 7, 2026 LULU GARCÍA-NAVARRO There is a lot of debate as to whether the president, again, is hurting or helping. Let's play his comments about Iran, the war, and some cities in California.(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)DONALD TRUMP: We have to stop them from having a nuclear weapon. So, I was riding in Iowa. I made a speech there, and I passed a gas station, $1.95 a gallon. I passed another station, $1.85 a gallon. We'll have it lower than that in a very short period of time.And, again, remember, with the war, it's just artificial. It's a little bit high. It's a small price to pay for keeping the world safe, keeping our country safe. They can take out a city. Let them take -- let it -- let them take out Los Angeles. Let them take out San Diego. That's -- this is a very small price to pay, and it's going to be over very soon.(END VIDEO CLIP)GARCIA-NAVARRO: I mean, with comments like that, obviously up to interpretation. I want to be clear --- no, I'll -- no, but some -- but wait a second. What I'm trying to say here is that one version says that the president meant this just to talk about how Iran is, you know, likely a huge threat, and another version says that he, you know, might have meant it. And what is your --SCOTT JENNINGS: This is the latest bloodbath-type hoax, where you take something the president said. He was quite clear. His position is he -- listen to the whole thing, and a number of even Democrats and liberal fact-checker types have come out today to say, no, this is being totally misconstrued. He's saying, they could have the capacity to do this if we don't stop them, and that's why we're fighting and that's why it's worth it.Any honest person listening to that knows that's exactly what he was doing, but a lot of people got spun up on --GARCIA-NAVARRO: Why do you think it's hard to understand what the president means sometimes?JASON RANTZ: Not in that clip.JENNINGS: No, you couldn't.RANTZ: Not in that clip. I mean, I'm with you. I think you're right sometimes. Not in that clip. It was crystal clear what it was he was saying there. Anyone acting in good faith can listen to that and know specifically. García-Navarro, like host Abby Phillip, did the thing where the moderator takes a side in the debate- in this case, ignoring Dale’s own (reluctant) fact-check and pushing the bad-faith frame.Scott Jennings and Jason Rantz were all over this, and immediately pushed back on the media’s interpretation of what the President said. Jennings rightly identified this incident as yet another media hoax. Par for the course from the Trump-deranged media with a midterm just 27 days out.

Though the Raiders lost in the end, they showed grit to go toe-to-toe with the Chiefs. This week's Ballers kept Las Vegas in it to the end.