Since late January of 2012, the Washington Examiner’s Paul Bedard has once a week featured a “Mainstream Media Scream” selection in his “Washington Secrets” column. For each pick, usually posted online on Monday, I provide an explanation and recommend a “scream” rating (scale of one to five). This post contains the “Liberal Media Screams” starting in January 2023. > For 2021 and 2022, for all of 2020. For all of 2019. For all of  2018. (Re-named “Liberal Media Scream” as of June 11, 2018.) “Mainstream Media Screams” for: > July-December 2017 posts; January through June 2017; July to December 2016; for January to June 2016; for July to December 2015; for January to June 2015. (2012-2014 are featured on MRC.org: For 2014; for June 17, 2013 through the end of 2013. And for January 31, 2012 through June 11, 2013.) Check Bedard’s “Washington Secrets” blog for the latest choice and his other Washington insider posts. Each week, this page will be updated with Bedard’s latest example of the worst bias of the week. (For more of the worst liberal media bias, browse the Media Research Center's Notable Quotables with compilations of the latest outrageous, sometimes humorous, quotes in the liberal media.) ■ New on January 13, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: PBS delights that Trump will forever be a ‘convicted felon’ See the posting on the Washington Examiner's site where you can watch the video and read Baker's assessment. A week later, Bedard's article will be posted here.   ■ January 6, 2025: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC the sole #Joementia denier (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Symone Sanders-Townsend as the media’s last denier that President Joe Biden has lost it. What’s crazier than the obvious is that she claims that it is incoming President-elect Donald Trump who suffers brain fog. Appearing on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday, Sanders-Townsend’s defense of the president who dropped out of his reelection campaign after his brain locked during a debate with Trump came just hours before his bizarre cursing rant about immigrants following a White House ceremony. “The question on the table is, ‘Is the president all they way there?’ And the answer is unequivocally yes,” Sanders-Townsend said on the show. The MSNBC host, in fact, charged it is Trump whose mental capacities should be questioned. Biden “can at least put a sentence together,” but “the president-elect is the one I am concerned about.” From Sunday’s Meet the Press: SYMONE SANDERS TOWNSEND: Well, I was very surprised that when you asked the question about mental acuity he didn’t more forcefully push back. The question on the table is, “Is the president all the way there?” And the answer is unequivocally yes. Now, people can say that you feel as though President Biden might be a little too old to do the job, but he is doing the job. And his mental acuity is there. So, I think that there’s a conflation of two things here: his mental capacity and serving another four years as old as he is. But those are two separate things in my opinion. And, look, these people that have known Joe Biden their entire political lives, I know Joe Biden is like, “Can you all just please defend me a little more?” MARC SHORT: I think it hurt Democrats. It hurt Democrats in November to try to tell the American people something they could see with their own eyes wasn’t true. SANDERS-TOWNSEND: But it’s not true that the president doesn’t have the mental acuity. SHORT: Of course it is, Symone. The American people saw that for themselves in the debate— SANDERS-TOWNSEND: What are you saying? He can at least put a sentence together. The president-elect is the one I am concerned about because I recently talked to the president. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Sanders is a last holdout, a true foolish believer. Virtually all of her colleagues, even those who pretended for years that Biden was fine, started to acknowledge, as soon as Biden was no longer the Democratic candidate for reelection, that he’s not all there. But not Sanders. She’s still in the tank and embarrassing herself, especially when suggesting it’s Trump who has the mental shortcomings.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ December 30, 2024: Liberal Media Scream: Eleventh-hour CBS admission of ‘undeniable’ Biden brain fog (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CBS admitting, with just three weeks to go in President Joe Biden’s administration, that he and his aides have been lying about his cognitive decline and that the media helped cover it up. And having known about it for months or longer, now, the media are promising to call out health problems when they see them, a not-so-subtle warning to President-elect Donald Trump. “We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years,” CBS correspondent Jan Crawford said on Face the Nation. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS, with Major Garrett serving as the fill-in host: MAJOR GARRETT: One of the other things we also do in the year-end correspondents’ table is dig into what was undercovered or underreported. Jan? JAN CRAWFORD: Um, undercovered or underreported. That would be, to me, Joe Biden’s obvious cognitive decline that became undeniable in the televised debate. GARRETT: At the presidential debate with Donald Trump. CRAWFORD: Unquestioned. And, you know, it’s starting to emerge now that his advisers kind of managed his limitations. It’s been reported in the Wall Street Journal, for four years. And yet he insisted that he could still run for president. We should have much more forcefully questioned whether he was fit for office for another four years, which could have led to a primary for the Democrats. It could have changed the scope of the entire election. Yet still, incredibly, we read in the Washington Post that his advisers are saying that he regrets that he dropped out of the race. You know, that he thinks he could have beaten Trump. And I think that is either delusional, or they’re gaslighting. ROBERT COSTA: President Biden has said repeatedly he was sick during the debate, June 27 in Atlanta, and he’s always been fine and he leaves fine. That is his position, the position of many of his top aides as well, even though there is that reporting. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Too bad that as an on-air reporter for CBS, Crawford couldn’t have done something to get CBS to give airtime to the recent Wall Street Journal story documenting Biden’s many years of cognitive inabilities. Yet Costa, in parroting the White House talking points, demonstrated his own complicity, like virtually all of the Washington press corps, in advancing the White House’s big lie.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ December 23: Liberal Media Scream: CBS’s Margaret Brennan offended at ‘unelected’ Musk (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a network critic of President-elect Donald Trump taking offense at ally Elon Musk’s lobbying Congress on behalf of the Republican. CBS’s Margaret Brennan, host of Face the Nation, hit Musk as an “unelected” influencer, which, of course, she is, too. Brennan called Musk’s role in the budget talks last week “confusing” on Sunday. Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) said, “It feels as if Elon Musk is our prime minister.” To which Brennan interjected, “Unelected.” Gonzales agreed he is unelected but pointed out how “he has a voice, and I think a lot of, a large part of that voice is a reflection of the voice of the people.” The exchange on Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: I want to ask you about the dynamic here because it’s confusing, frankly. I mean, Elon Musk is tweeting against bipartisan deals negotiated and led by the speaker of the House. What role exactly is he playing here? REP. TONY GONZALES (R-TX): It’s kind of interesting. We have a president. We have a vice president. We have a speaker. It feels like — as if Elon Musk is our prime minister. And I spoke with Elon a couple of times this week. I think many of us- BRENNAN: Unelected. GONZALES: Unelected, but, I mean, he has a voice. And I think a lot of, a large part of that voice is a reflection of the voice of the people. Once again, a 1,500-page bill, how does that pass the smell test? It’s absolutely wrong. It’s what’s wrong with this place. So, we have to get back to regular order. The other part of it, too, is while House Republicans were fighting over this spending bill, guess what Senate Democrats were doing? They were ensuring that President Biden got his 235th liberal judge over the finish line. That’s why it’s so important that House Republicans stay united, stay laser-focused on delivering on a President Trump agenda next year. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Guess who else is unelected but has lots of influence over public policy? High-powered wealthy media figures like Margaret Brennan who regularly pontificate on TV. One big difference between Brennan and so many others in the press corps who are upset with Musk’s power? He’s popular, and they are not.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ December 16: Liberal Media Scream: Of course MSNBC defends Stephanopoulos lies (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the lowly rated MSNBC defending the lie told by ABC’s George Stephanopoulos that resulted in the media giant this weekend forking over $16 million to President-elect Donald Trump as punishment. Instead of backing Trump or avoiding the matter, such as Stephanopoulos did himself during his Sunday hosting of This Week, the hosts of MSNBC’s The Weekend on Sunday decried ABC’s payment. They also dismissed the lie told during a March interview with Rep. Nancy Mace (R-SC) that Trump was found liable for rape. “The media now is sort of falling into that ‘oh, we want to play nice’ mode,” Michael Steele said. Symone Sanders said, “This feels like it has a really chilling effect” on media coverage of Trump. Trump today said he is targeting other media that lied about him during the campaign and his first administration. From MSNBC’s The Weekend on Sunday morning: MICHAEL STEELE: I’ve been, on this program and elsewhere, complaining, because it is a complaint, about how the legal system itself has been so easily manipulated. The media now is sort of falling into that “Oh, we want to play nice.” What’s your assessment of how this affects the way the country governs itself when both the judicial and the media space seem so willing to blow past the obvious problems with this incoming administration? SYMONE SANDERS: This feels like it has a really chilling effect, like, shout out to the standards department, okay, standards is always making sure that we keep the bar high and substantive and accurate. But what George Stephanopoulos said in that interview, I mean, it seems to hold up with what the judge said after the fact and now these news organization, and himself, George Stephanopoulos himself, is paying a million dollars of his own money to the lawyers, and ABC, $15 million dollars, it’s insane…. The parsing of this, the judge said that George Stephanopoulos was right essentially. But Donald Trump sued anyway for defamation. And ABC made the calculated decision that, you know what, we’re just going to pay. George Stephanopoulos also has to pay. He’s on the hook for a million dollars of his own money. And that leaves the rest of us with what? We want to be accurate, right? We have a standards department. We are all endeavoring to keep the bar high and substantive and not engage in interviews and conversation where people just lie about conspiracy theories and they themselves aren’t accurate. But this seems quite targeted and I don’t think George Stephanopoulos was wrong. I’m sorry. Now you all got nothing to say because none of you want a lawsuit. See, this is the chilling effect! My mom is about to text me: shut up, because what are you doing? Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Stephanopoulos was caught red-handed making a defamatory statement, repeatedly, about President-elect Trump and ABC was concerned enough about their liability to settle. Yet the MSNBC hosts have learned nothing, with Steele worrying about the media being too nice to Trump and Sanders, incredibly, doubling down on the false allegation. Instead of worrying about ‘chilling effects,’ maybe journalists should consider not smearing Trump, or anyone, with false characterizations.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ December 9: Liberal Media Scream: PBS TDS blames Trump for Hunter Biden’s pardon (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features tax-dollar-supported PBS behind the latest Trump Derangement Syndrome claim that the incoming president caused President Joe Biden to flip-flop and pardon his son Hunter Biden of felony charges. Sounding more like a practiced Democratic Party spokesman than a journalist, commentator Jonathan Capehart said on PBS NewsHour that Joe Biden had no choice but to pardon his son because President-elect Donald Trump wanted to throw the book at Hunter Biden, who has been caught up in gun and tax cases. He also appeared to blame Vice President Kamala Harris for the pardon, suggesting that her loss cleared the way for Trump to target the younger Biden. Winging it as usual without any evidence, the Washington Post columnist and PBS regular said: “I am almost certain, 99% certain, that President Biden was hoping that Vice President Harris would win and that this would not be an issue.” The president’s pardon has been condemned by many Democrats, and it threatens to ruin what’s left of Biden’s presidential legacy. A handful of defenders, however, are making excuses for Biden’s pardon. Capehart, a contributor to PBS as well as the host of a weekend show on MSNBC and an opinion writer for the Washington Post, on Friday’s PBS NewsHour: HOST GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, in your view, was it justified, and what’s the lasting impact? JONATHAN CAPEHART: Well, one, yes, it was justified. When the president said that he would not pardon his son, wouldn’t grant clemency, the facts on the ground were completely different. It’s the middle of a presidential campaign. He was the candidate for president, didn’t want to be viewed as interfering. He’s no longer the candidate. His vice president is the presidential nominee. I am almost certain, 99% certain, that President Biden was hoping that Vice President Harris would win and that this would not be an issue. But when the person who won the race won the race by vowing, through a campaign of retribution, revenge, naming the Biden family in general and Hunter Biden, in particular, as someone or groups of people, he wanted to go after if he won election, of course, the president looks at the facts, says I cannot allow that to happen to my son. And I understand the criticisms and the brickbats that the president is taking. But for some Democrats to be complaining about how “you’ve ruined norms” and “you’ve given him an avenue,” have they not been paying attention to who Donald Trump is either during the campaign or during his four years as president the first go-round? And these are the same people who would be yelling at Biden had he not done something and then President Trump took action against Hunter Biden: “Why didn’t you save your son? Why didn’t you help your son when you had the opportunity to do so when you were president?” He’s done it. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “The very definition of rationalizing situational ethics and further proof, if any were needed, that Capehart is more a Democratic Party partisan than any kind of impartial analyst. If a Democrat or liberal does it, Capehart will defend it.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ December 2: Liberal Media Scream: MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough back to attacking Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough back to attacking President-elect Donald Trump, showing he learned “nothing” from his trip to Mar-a-Lago to break bread with the incoming president. Siding with those who criticized his trip to Florida with wife and co-host Mika Brzezinski, Scarborough came out Monday with his guns blazing at two Trump top staff picks, Kash Patel for FBI director and Pete Hegseth for defense secretary. “There are two picks right now that, if you talk to people in Washington, D.C., they will, this morning, tell you two of the most dangerous selections they’ve seen,” Scarborough said. Scarborough and Brzezinski traveled to Florida two weeks ago to “mend fences” with Trump after years of bashing the former president. Once they announced their trip, however, their media friends pummelled the duo, and Scarborough’s monologue on Monday showed whose side he was on. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough on Monday’s Morning Joe: We hear what people talk about flooding the zone and a lot of information coming at you all at once and not being able to sort through things. There are two picks right now that if you talk to people in Washington, D.C., they will, this morning, tell you two of the most dangerous selections they’ve seen. No. 1, Pete Hegseth. Simply because he’s unqualified to run the most complicated and most powerful bureaucracy not only in America but in the world. And No. 2 now, Kash Patel. Kash Patel, of course, is a person who infamously said he was going to jail reporters and journalists and news people who did not go along with the 2020 election conspiracy theory. And we’re going to be talking in a little bit to Elaina Plott Calabro, who wrote a story about six months ago on Kash Patel. Let me just read you just a little bit from that: “When Patel was installed as chief of staff to the acting secretary of defense, just after the 2020 election, Mark Milley, who, of course, was the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, advised him to not break the law. Quote: ‘Life looks really s***ty from behind bars,’ Milley reportedly told Patel. When Trump entertained naming Patel for deputy director of the FBI, Attorney General Bill Barr, again, another Trump loyalist, confronted the White House chief of staff and said, quote: ‘Over my dead body.’ “When in the final weeks of the administration, Trump planned to name Patel deputy director of the CIA, Gina Haspel, the head of the CIA, threatened to resign. Trump relented only after an intervention from Vice President Mike Pence. She goes on to ask: Who is this man, and why did so many top officials fear him?” We will go through it. It’s certainly not because he’s an expert in any of these fields. It’s not even because he’s an ideologue. It’s because he seems, according to this piece and everything we’ve seen, singularly focused on exacting revenge on people who did not carry through on Donald Trump’s threats of retribution. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “So much for Joe Scarborough’s trip to Mar-a-Lago to build a new relationship with the incoming president after years of vicious attacks on him. If Scarborough is just going to continue to channel the deep state’s refusal to accept the right of Trump to staff his administration by trying to impugn those picks, he’s learned nothing about why so many have such contempt for the legacy media.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 25: Liberal Media Scream: Axios founder rants ‘Elon Musk is bulls**it’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the co-founder of Axios ranting about billionaire Elon Musk and his comments on X about being part of the news media. “Being a reporter’s hard,” said Jim VandeHei. “Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day, or X today, saying, like, ‘we are the media, you are the media.’ My message to Elon Musk is: Bulls**t. You’re not the media. You having a blue check mark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter.” VandeHei’s comments came after he accepted the National Press Club’s Fourth Estate Award. Musk has been on X from Mar-a-Lago zinging the media as he prepares to head the Trump-created Department of Government Efficiency. The billionaire’s comments irked many in the media, especially since he owns X, and VandeHei showed that he’s one of those miffed with Musk. The comments were shown on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, which dubbed them “very powerful.” Jim Vandehei at the Fourth Estate Award Gala held Thursday at the National Press Club, as played Monday on Morning Joe: JIM VANDEHEI: I hate this damn debate about, oh, “we don’t need the media.” It is not true … There’s something about freedom, capitalism, the animal spirits of democracy, but at the core of that is maybe transparency, maybe a free press, maybe the ability to do your job without worrying to go to jail, maybe the ability to sit in a war zone and tell people what is actually happening so they’re not just looking at distortion, matters. It matters profoundly. It’s why, it’s not like we just love getting up at 3:00, 4:00 in the morning, doing this every single day, we do it because we love it. We do it because it matters. The work that we do matters. Everything we do is under fire. Elon Musk sits on Twitter every day, or X today, saying like, “We are the media, you are the media.” My message to Elon Musk is: Bulls**t. You’re not the media. You having – [applause] you having a blue check mark, a Twitter handle, and 300 words of cleverness doesn’t make you a reporter any more than me looking at your head and seeing that you have a brain and telling you have an awesome set of tools makes me a damn neurosurgeon. Right? Like what we do, what journalists do, what you did in Mississippi, what Al Jazeera does in the Middle East, you don’t proclaim yourself to be a reporter. Like, that’s nonsense. Like being a reporter’s hard. Really hard. You have to care. You have to do the hard work. You have to get up every single day and say I want to get to the closest approximation of the truth without any fear, without any favoritism. You don’t do that by popping off on Twitter. You don’t do that by having an opinion. You do it by doing the hard work. JOE SCARBOROUGH: Yeah. Come on, slow clap, everybody. First of all, I got to say, extraordinary content. It needed to be said. It continues to need to be said when all of the garbage that’s flying around on social media, lying about reporters, lying about the hard work they do, lying about the hard work editors do, lying about everything up and down about not only their alternative set of facts but alternative set of facts about what people like you do. And I love how you connected reporters in Mississippi in the 1960s to reporters fighting for their life to get the story out in the Middle East today. Jim, it was very powerful. MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Really good. SCARBOROUGH: Very powerful. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explained our pick: “Arrogance combined with obliviousness. In the face of record low trust in the media, instead of some introspection about why the media have lost the public’s trust, VandeHei decided to instead lash out at the competition, a platform which wouldn’t have such relevance if the legacy media weren’t so discredited. It’s as if Ford responded to exploding Pintos by denouncing the gas mileage claims made by GM.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ November 18: Liberal Media Scream: ABC’s Raddatz shows why it’s time to boycott networks (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features one example of the media lunacy that has followed the sweeping electoral and popular vote for President-elect Donald Trump despite years of warnings and smears from the resistance media. While most in the Democratic Party are licking their wounds and trying to figure out how they did so poorly against Trump and why they picked the worst candidate around in Vice President Kamala Harris, many liberal TV anchors are still suffering from “Trump derangement syndrome.” Sunday showed them all still at work. On 60 Minutes, Scott Pelley opened with a rant against Trump’s Cabinet picks. And he was preceded by the frenzied Sunday public affairs shows trying to convince the nation that the president-elect was unfit for duty. On Monday, two of those with the worst case of TDS, Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, all but admitted their preelection anti-Trump hype on their MSNBC show Morning Joe was a lie when they revealed that they traveled to Mar-a-Lago last week to break bread with Trump. The worst example of the ranting rage on network TV came from ABC’s Martha Raddatz, who opened Sunday’s This Week with a charge that Trump’s picks were “retribution” for those who have wronged him. “The retribution begins,” she declared. From the top of Sunday’s This Week on ABC: MARTHA RADDATZ: The retribution begins. DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT-ELECT: We’re going to clean out the corrupt, broken, and failing bureaucracies. RADDATZ: The president-elect sparking alarm with controversial Cabinet nominees, including a firebrand Fox TV host to lead the Department of Defense. PETE HEGSETH, DEFENSE SECRETARY NOMINEE: I’m straight up just saying, we should not have women in combat roles. RADDATZ: Noted vaccine skeptic Robert F. Kennedy Jr. for health and human services secretary. TRUMP: He wants to make people healthy. It’s driven him pretty wild over the last number of years. RADDATZ: And ardent Trump loyalist, now former congressman, Matt Gaetz, to run the Justice Department. SEN. KEVIN CRAMER (R-ND): He’s got a really steep hill to climb to get lots of votes, including mine. RADDATZ: Democratic Sen.-elect Elissa Slotkin responds to the nominations. Plus, former CDC Director Richard Besser, former prosecutor Preet Bharara, and analysis from our powerhouse roundtable. Plus: JOE DEL BOSQUE, CALIFORNIA FARMER: We pay some of the highest wages for farm workers in the nation right here in California, and they won’t come out. RADDATZ: We traveled to California farmland to see what Trump’s massive deportation plans could mean for farmers and the nation’s food supply. Texas Republican Tony Gonzales joins us for reaction. ANNOUNCER: From ABC News, it’s This Week. Here now, Martha Raddatz. RADDATZ: Good morning, and welcome to This Week. Donald Trump is wasting no time naming the team he wants around him in a second term. In rapid-fire fashion, he announced a series of nominees this week to fill the White House and lead key Cabinet departments. Many of them were right by Trump’s side last night to attend a UFC fight at Madison Square Garden in New York. Among them, controversial picks like the world’s richest man, Elon Musk, and entrepreneur Vivek Ramaswamy, who will lead a new Department of Government Efficiency, an amorphous role aimed at slashing federal spending. While that move raised a lot of intrigue, other picks have raised eyebrows to say the least, and some, outright opposition. Brent Baker, the Steven P.J. Wood senior fellow and vice president for research and publications at the Media Research Center, explains our pick: “Less than two weeks after the MAGA agenda won an electoral mandate and showed how the legacy media have lost their influence, Raddatz is still living in a preelection world. Instead of explaining to her viewers what the appeal of Trump’s picks could be, or presenting a balanced take with matching praise and criticism for them, she didn’t even try to hide her disdain for them. And Disney wonders why they’re losing viewers.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ November 12: Liberal Media Scream: How dare Trump make demands on Senate, CNN whines (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features CNN struggling to find new ways to attack President-elect Donald Trump. This time, it’s Trump’s pressure on the Senate to OK his Cabinet picks, which are coming fast and furious, without the normal confirmation steps. At CNN, they said it’s just Trump “again bucking norms.” From Sunday’s CNN: ALAYNA TREENE: [President-elect Donald Trump] said, quote: “Republican senators seeking the coveted leadership position in the United States Senate must agree to recess appointments in the Senate, without which, we will not be able to get people confirmed in a timely manner.” The post goes on to describe other things. But I want to explain why this is so important. Essentially, Donald Trump is calling for the shattering of norms. Now what this means, a recess appointment, I know this sounds like we’re getting in the weeds a bit with the Hill lingo. But recesses are normally avoided in Congress. Normally, when they actually go on break, they do something called a pro forma session. Part of that is because if you go to a recess, you actually have to have a vote in the House and the Senate, and Democrats, in this case, giving Republicans control of the Senate come next year, would be able to filibuster. But essentially, to get down to it, to really boil down to what this would mean, is that Donald Trump is trying to find a way and use whoever the next Senate leader — Republican leader — is to try and avoid the confirmation process for his top Cabinet officials. And I remind you, a lot of times when different presidential candidates or people are looking to make these hires and to appoint different people to these different Cabinet roles, a key thing that is always at the top of their minds is whether or not this person can get confirmed in the Senate, if they have a controversial background, if they are more conservative, in this case, if they were Democrats, they’d be maybe too liberal. But really, the Senate is kind of the last line of defense of who the president could put into office with him. And so this would be a huge change. And I will also argue that really this process that Congress has now about avoiding recess appointments in their entirety started back with George W. Bush and has continued since then under the different presidents with Obama and Trump and now Biden. And so, this again would be a huge break from the norms that we currently have. Fred. FREDRICKA WHITFIELD: And again, bucking norms. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst at NewsBusters, explained our weekly pick: “The Biden administration shattered many norms, whether it was the weaponization of state and federal governments against President-elect Donald Trump, the suppression of President Joe Biden’s physical and mental decline, or the government’s cooking of all sorts of data. Any one of these incidents occurring under a Trump administration would’ve garnered wall-to-wall ‘shattered norms’ coverage. On the contrary, the Biden parade of horribles drew nary a peep. Now, the media go nuts about norms the second a just-reelected Trump talks about staffing his administration via recess appointments.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ November 4: Liberal Media Scream: Gaslighting Politico calls Obama, Harris, and Biden ‘centrists’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the claim by Politico that Democratic leaders considered the most liberal in history are “centrists.” In gaslighting voters, the outlet’s White House correspondent Eugene Daniels said President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, and Vice President Kamala Harris aren’t liberals. Ditto for the Democratic Party and the party’s “base” of black voters, he added. “What it reminds us is that the Democratic Party continues to be a more centrist party, right? When you look at Obama, who, despite what people thought, kind of operated as a centrist, Biden, centrist, Kamala Harris, a centrist,” Daniels said on PBS. Daniels from Friday’s Washington Week with the Atlantic: “What it reminds us is that the Democratic Party continues to be a more centrist party, right? When you look at Obama, who, despite what people thought, kind of operated as a centrist, Biden, centrist, Kamala Harris, a centrist. The base of the Democratic Party continues to be black voters. They are still more centrist and more pragmatic as opposed to ideological. And so the takeover of the Democratic Party, as the Republican Party has found out, it hasn’t happened on the Democratic Party, the same with the Left.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “The party of letting high school boys play on girls sports teams and running an open border is ‘centrist’? Daniels needs to bring a little more skepticism to his journalism. Just because a politician spins themselves as ‘centrist’ does not make them one. Kamala Harris has a long record of far-left policy views that haven’t disappeared just because she is not touting them in this year’s campaign.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE Screams.   ■ October 28: Liberal Media Scream: CBS’s Brennan frets Cheney’s safety if Trump wins (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the Face the Nation host raising concerns that a Trump election will lead to violence against former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney for endorsing Vice President Kamala Harris in her yearlong campaign to stop former President Donald Trump’s comeback. Though it’s Trump who has been the target of two assassination attempts, CBS’s Margaret Brennan asked Cheney on her show on Sunday, “Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do?” Fed the softball pitch, Cheney hit it hard: “Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before.” It was just the latest example of the anti-Trump bias network TV has wallowed in this election year. Earlier on Monday, the Media Research Center, which helps with this weekly feature, issued a report that showed a historic level of bias by CBS, ABC, and NBC. From Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: Given how outspoken you have been, are you concerned about your personal security if Donald Trump wins this election, as he well may do? LIZ CHENEY: Look, first of all, I am very confident that Vice President Harris is going to win this election. It’s what we’re seeing all across the country, the kind of absolutely unprecedented coalition that’s coming together to support her, you know, we’re going to run through the tape, and nobody is overconfident here, but I do believe she’s going to be the next president of the United States. And I think that Donald Trump has ushered violence into our politics in a way that we haven’t seen before. And any violence is unacceptable. Certainly, the assassination attempt on the former president was completely unacceptable and obviously should never have happened. But when you have a situation where, you know, Donald Trump suggests that people who disagree with him ought to be put before military tribunals, that the former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff should be hanged for treason, and his running mate doubles down on it, that tells you that you’re dealing with a man who doesn’t have any conscience, and the people who worked most closely with him know that. So, I’m confident that he’s going to be defeated next week. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “The reality of political violence in this year’s campaign came from the Left and opponents of Trump, not from him. Brennan seemed to have her own political agenda to try to generate an answer which would demonstrate another reason to vote for Harris: that a Trump win would physically endanger his critics. But not even Cheney, a Trump-hater, would go that far to presume Trump’s supporters are a bunch of violent fanatics who must be feared.” Rating: FOUR out of FIVE screams.   ■ October 21: Liberal Media Scream: ‘Swamp’ journalists admit cluelessness on Trump and MAGA (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features three of Washington’s prominent political correspondents finally admitting just how clueless they are about former President Donald Trump, whom at least half the nation sees as one of the easiest politicians to understand — and like. We feature the puzzlement of Washington Post journalists Max Boot and Jonathan Capehart and the Atlantic’s Mark Leibovich as they mull Trump’s comeback. “How can we have tens of millions of our fellow citizens think it’s OK to elect this delusional maniac as president of the United States? I, you know, I just don’t get it,” Boot told Capehart, who whined, “It is baffling to me as well.” Mark Leibovich on MSNBC’s Morning Joe on Monday: “I think the larger stain on our history that we’re living through right now is Trump obviously and what he has stood for and what he has gotten away with.” “The idea that Donald Trump has operated within a permission structure of one of our two major parties to a point where there is just a consequence-free environment for him to operate in is one of the most appalling, I think, takeaways from this era. Obviously, one that portends very, very ominously in case he wins because there’s not going to be a check and balance from his own party. They’ll operate from a platform where he can do whatever he wants. But, essentially, I mean, these are people who I think will, hopefully, you know, live under a very, very damning verdict of history.” Max Boot during Friday’s “First Look” show for Washington Post Live “To me, what’s dismaying is not that Trump is denying reality, that he is depicting the rioters and insurrectionists of Jan. 6 as people engaged in a day of love. It’s not that Trump is denying the results of the 2020 election, as is his running mate, J.D. Vance. All of that we’ve come to expect by now. “What is dismaying to me, Jonathan, is that despite all of this, Trump is very close to winning the presidency again. It’s basically a coin-flip election. We don’t know how it’s going to go, but simply the fact that it’s as close as it is right now is, to me, a terrible commentary on America and a very dismaying, very dismaying augury of our future, that so many Americans seem to be so OK with this. I mean, how is this? How can we have tens of millions of our fellow citizens think it’s OK to elect this delusional maniac as president of the United States? I, you know, I just don’t get it.” Jonathan Capehart: “Yeah, it is baffling to me as well.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “What’s ‘dismaying,’ ‘appalling,’ and a ‘terrible commentary’ on the state of American journalism is that two veteran journalists with major media institutions have such disdain for half of their fellow citizens. It also portends a dangerous reaction from the media if Trump does indeed win. Instead of dispassionately reporting on how and why he won, they’ll be condemning as a ‘stain’ on the nation those who voted for him.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ October 14: Liberal Media Scream: Vance and Johnson hit media TDS nitpickers (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the escalation of media whining and excuse-making for the problems Vice President Kamala Harris is encountering in her wobbly bid to become president. We feature MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who worried on Meet the Press about black and white men and businesses favoring former President Donald Trump, though she expressed no similar concerns about women favoring Harris in the gender gap. In one segment, she advised Harris to do more interviews to win over more men, though the vice president’s recent media blitz has brought mostly negative reviews. And she said Harris needs to push back on businesses’ view of her as a lightweight. “I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious,” Mitchell said. Mitchell’s comments came during a discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press about how Harris needs to do more media interviews to let people know about her economic policies: “They’ve got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews because what I’m hearing from Democratic and Republican businesspeople and a lot of men — and she’s got such a big problem with men. I think there’s an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight. And a lot of this is gender, but she’s got to be more specific about her economic plans.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Of course, Andrea Mitchell attributes the worst of motives, misogyny, for why men favor Trump over Harris but expresses no concern for why women back Harris over Trump. Just like a partisan Democrat would see the world. Which is what the NBC News journalist is.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams.   ■ October 7: Liberal Media Scream: Andrea Mitchell whines men and business supporting Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the escalation of media whining and excuse-making for the problems Vice President Kamala Harris is encountering in her wobbly bid to become president. We feature MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell, who worried on Meet the Press about black and white men and businesses favoring former President Donald Trump, though she expressed no similar concerns about women favoring Harris in the gender gap. In one segment, she advised Harris to do more interviews to win over more men, though the vice president’s recent media blitz has brought mostly negative reviews. And she said Harris needs to push back on businesses’ view of her as a lightweight. “I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious,” Mitchell said. Mitchell’s comments came during a discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press about how Harris needs to do more media interviews to let people know about her economic policies: “They’ve got to double down on doing more interviews and serious interviews because what I’m hearing from Democratic and Republican businesspeople and a lot of men — and she’s got such a big problem with men. I think there’s an undercount of the Trump vote. I think there’s misogynation in all of this, black and white men, big problem. But also, the business world, they don’t think she is serious. They don’t think she’s a heavyweight. And a lot of this is gender, but she’s got to be more specific about her economic plans.” Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Of course, Andrea Mitchell attributes the worst of motives, misogyny, for why men favor Trump over Harris but expresses no concern for why women back Harris over Trump. Just like a partisan Democrat would see the world. Which is what the NBC News journalist is.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams   ■ September 30: Liberal Media Scream: Latinos like Trump because they ‘want to be white’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key MSNBC Latina guest who smeared her fellow Latinos with a racist anti-Trump rant on Sunday. On The Sunday Show with Jonathan Capehart, NPR’s Maria Hinojosa ripped Latinos for abandoning the Democratic Party. Reacting to a new NBC News/Telemundo poll that found Vice President Kamala Harris losing support from Hispanic voters, Hinojosa said, “Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids.” The 63-year-old Hispanic journalist apparently isn’t up with what’s cool on social media. From The Sunday Show With Jonathan Capehart on Sunday: JONATHAN CAPEHART: So she has a 14-point lead, but it has been shrinking after each consecutive presidential election from 2016. Why is that? Why is the Democratic share of the Latino vote shrinking? MARIA HINOJOSA: And what I said to you when we asked the question was, Latinos want to be white. They want to be with the cool kids. They want to be — I’m asking Latinos all the time, and they just say, ‘Well … he’s such a good businessman.’ It’s, like, no, he’s not. He had bankruptcies. But they don’t want to be identified with all of those other immigrants that Donald Trump speaks so badly of, including me, as a Mexican immigrant. So they’re, like, ‘We’d rather, let’s be with him.’ But those numbers? They could cost Kamala Harris the election. Everything that I’ve been saying that Latinos could push her over the top, these are the numbers that could also take her down. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Hinojosa reflects the very worst of identity politics. Vote only for liberal Democrats — or you are a race traitor. The fact a solid majority of Hispanics support Kamala Harris isn’t good enough for Hinojosa. Every Latino who dares stray from the party line must be shunned because such betrayal could cost the Democrat the election.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams   ■ September 23: Liberal Media Scream: PBS says Harris a ‘happy warrior’ ready to ‘slap’ Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the latest PBS effort to portray Vice President Kamala Harris as a joyful and happy warrior taking on evil in challenging former President Donald Trump for the presidency. On PBS NewsHour, MSNBC and Washington Post lefty pundit Jonathan Capehart declared Harris as a part of the “culture” willing to fight Trump. “She’s part of what’s driving this culture that I think you said will slap Donald Trump in the face. It’s slapping him in the face now,” Capehart said, adding, “She, in her entire career, has been the happy warrior about helping people and leaving aside the negativity. It just happens to hit at the right person at the right time.” From Friday’s PBS NewsHour, picking up after anchor Geoff Bennett cited David Brooks’s column, “How a Cultural Shift Favors Harris.” GEOFF BENNETT: Jonathan, that word joy, Kamala Harris, Vice President Harris, when she sat down with the three reporters from the National Association of Black Journalists today [actually on Tuesday], one of them asked her about how she views attacks on her joyful warrior approach. And she defended it. And she said people will try to sometimes use your best asset against you. What do you make of that and this notion that she’s benefitting from a cultural wave? JONATHAN CAPEHART: I don’t think she’s benefitting from a cultural — yes, she is, and I read your column, David. It’s not so much that she’s riding — she’s — like see this wave coming and she’s riding. No, she is part of the culture. And that’s why I think when she became the top of the ticket, everyone marveled at how quickly the light switch flipped. That can — and it happened so organically in a very dramatic fashion. That, to me, says you can’t manufacture that. And she was able to do that because she is the culture. She is part of the culture. She’s part of what’s driving this culture that I think you said will slap Donald Trump in the face. It’s slapping him in the face now, which is why I think he’s so discombobulated. He doesn’t know how to deal with her. I think it’s why the polls are — the momentum is moving in her direction. And to your point about happy warrior, and David is right, this is the way the vice president has always been, which sort of reinforces what you’re saying. It’s not that she has met up with the culture. She, in her entire career, has been the happy warrior about helping people and leaving aside the negativity. It just happens to hit at the right person, at the right time. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “What a joke. Harris ‘is the culture’ and has been the embodiment of ‘the happy warrior about helping people’ for her ‘entire career’? She changes her culture and accent with every crowd she addresses. It must be nice to be a liberal Democrat, where supposed journalists not only endorse the glowingly upbeat imagery you want but celebrate it without any critical thinking over whether it is phony and then promote it as a genuine compelling life story.” Rating: Five out of FIVE screams   ■ September 15: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ September 9: Liberal Media Scream: Team Harris calls US ‘incredibly backwards’ (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features a key Team Harris supporter decrying America as “incredibly backwards” for electing only men as president. Trump traitor Alyssa Farah Griffin, the “conservative” on The View, was discussing the debate between her ex-boss, former President Donald Trump, and Vice President Kamala Harris on CNN’s State of the Union when she blasted America. “We’re incredibly backwards as a country that we’ve never had a female president,” she said. The comment clashed with one of the key themes of the Harris campaign: criticizing Trump for claiming that America is in a shambles and spinning backward under the leadership of Harris and President Joe Biden. From Sunday’s State of the Union: ALYSSA FARAH GRIFFIN: And the reality is, you shouldn’t underestimate Donald Trump. He has now done more presidential race — debates, I should say — than anyone in history, and he’s somebody who came up on television. He’s a communicator. He’s somebody who is used to speaking to a mass audience. If he can stay focused and he stays to the core issues: economy, border, it’s a good night for him. But we’ve also seen the world in which he shouts out the Proud Boys, or he talks about Hannibal Lecter, or he gets into name calling. That could go against him. To Kamala Harris, she needs to look presidential. We’re incredibly backwards as a country that we’ve never had a female president. So, for a lot of people seeing somebody up there who’s a woman who might be our first female president, she needs to seem commanding. She cannot get too in the weeds on policy. She needs to talk about it but can’t get sidetracked. Big picture. How will you demonstrably make people’s lives better? How will you turn the economy around? If she can do that and not get rattled by Donald Trump, it’ll be a good night for her. Jorge Bonilla, a news analyst with the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “One can very easily imagine Griffin uttering this same nonsensical hot take on ABC’s The View, with great care so as not to get yelled at by Sunny Hostin and before whatever box-wine-fueled nonsense sputtered by Ana Navarro. Given when a major party first nominated a woman to the top of the ballot, Griffin is calling America ‘backwards’ for committing the sin of electing Donald Trump to the presidency — a presidency that she served. This Trump-deranged nonsense is what passes for ‘analysis’ at CNN.” Rating: Four out of Five SCREAMS.   ■ September 2: No Liberal Media Scream this week   ■ August 26: Liberal Media Scream: ‘CNN’ has become a laugh line (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features talker Bill Maher mocking CNN and its hosts for viewing the lefty cable network as politically centrist, citing unending “gushing” over Vice President Kamala Harris’s presidential nomination acceptance speech the night before. “I watched from 8:09 to 8:23. There was just gushing about how great a speech it was,” the talk show host and comedian told CNN host Kaitlan Collins. He said it wasn’t for 15 minutes until “Lonely Scott” Jennings, one of the few conservatives paid by CNN, got a word in. “It was like 5-to-1. It always looks like 5-to-1,” Maher said of how CNN stacks liberals against conservatives. Collins, who a week ago faced laughter from Stephen Colbert’s audience when he called CNN fair, tried to defend the network, but Maher wasn’t hearing it. “It’s, kind of, like, the same as The View. It’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC,” he dissed. From Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO on Friday: BILL MAHER: You made press because you were on Stephen Colbert’s show, and he said something like you guys at CNN just report the news straight, and the crowd burst into laughter. That tells you a lot, doesn’t it? How do you guys think you are doing in that arena of, like, this is a terribly divided country. We are not only politicized, a lot of people hate the other side. And CNN, in my view, should be the place where both sides can watch. How do you think you’re doing with that? COLLINS: CNN is the place where both sides can watch. And I think, you know, my show is evidence of that. We have lawmakers on from both parties. MAHER: I’m talking about the people on CNN, and I know what the conservative side of America thinks, and I don’t blame them. I watched Kamala’s speech last night. It ended at 8:09, or, I guess, 11:09 in the East. It wasn’t until 11:23 ‘till the one conservative guy, what’s his name? COLLINS: Scott Jennings. MAHER: ‘Lonely Scott,’ I call him. COLLINS: David Urban was there too. MAHER: Wait a second. Wait a second. I watched from 8:09 to 8:23. There was just gushing about how great a speech it was — and I think she did fine. I didn’t think it was as good as they were making it out to be, but if I’m a conservative in America, and I’m watching CNN, just for the straight middle-of-the-road, that’s what I hear for 15 minutes is “it’s great” and then Lonely Scott. When you see — it does look like tokenism. It’s, kind of, like, the same as The View, it’s like, it’s almost better to have nobody there like MSNBC. COLLINS: I think it was a Democratic convention. They turned to Democrats, people like David Axelrod, who ran successful presidential Democratic campaigns first, for their analysis of this, and I don’t think that you can say that CNN is anything but fair. I mean, look at, we covered President Biden’s exit from the race very closely, the pressure on him to get out, and I feel like I could speak with authority on this — I’m from Alabama. I’m from a very red state. I have very conservative family, a lot of them are Trump voters. They watch my show every night, and I think they know that they can trust me, that we call bulls*** on every side, not just whatever leaning our audience may be, and I think that’s something that people want more of is to hear from that. I think Scott’s voice is really important, but I think other voices are important to hear from, and everyone who was speaking last night, it’s not like they were all Democrats. I mean, Dana Bash, Jake Tapper, Abby Philip, all my amazing colleagues giving analysis. MAHER: They come across that way. They came across that way in a moment like that. It was like 5-to-1. It always looks like 5-to-1. Brent Baker, the vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “It’s hard to believe Kaitlan Collins is really that clueless about the ingrained left-wing, anti-conservative agenda of CNN. That a traditionally left-of-center comedian recognizes that reality, to say nothing of an audience in Manhattan laughing at calling CNN objective, should give Collins pause. The fact that it doesn’t shows just how ideologically blind are Collins and her CNN colleagues are. To them, nothing is more important than keeping Donald Trump out of the White House.” Rating: FIVE out of FIVE Screams   ■ August 19: Liberal Media Scream: Media now correcting MAGA, not just Trump (Washington Examiner post) This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the media’s latest line of attack on former President Donald Trump, MAGA, and anybody who voices support for the GOP presidential nominee. It comes from the weekend public affairs show hosts who apparently feel compelled to have the last word when featuring Trump or a Trump supporter. One offensive pick came from Face the Nation moderator Margaret Brennan, who is also co-moderating the Oct. 1 vice presidential debate. She gratuitously hit Trump after he called Vice President Kamala Harris’s plan for price controls “communist.” Brennan promised: “We’ll tell you why that is wrong.” But after a break, she never told her viewers what was false or wrong about the Trump quote or even prompted any guest to correct Trump. Then there was Martha Raddatz, hosting ABC’s This Week. Not only did she open the show with a cheer for Harris, but in reporting shown later, she featured a black woman who said she was leaning toward voting for Trump. “Trump’s rhetoric has clearly had an effect on her in an astonishing way,” said Raddatz, whose fact-checking about race didn’t sit well with the black woman. “There was no convincing her otherwise,” she said. From the top of Sunday’s Face the Nation on CBS: MARGARET BRENNAN: I’m Margaret Brennan in Washington, and this week on Face the Nation, Democrats head to their convention in Chicago as inflation cools and the political back-and-forth over economic policies intensifies. With the presidential contest lineup set to be formally locked in this week, both sides turn their attention to issue No. 1 on the minds of the voters: the economy and inflation. KAMALA HARRIS: I will go after the bad actors, and I will work to pass the first-ever federal ban on price-gauging [sic] on food. DONALD TRUMP: A lot of people are very devastated by what’s happened with inflation and all of the other things. But they say it’s the most important subject. I’m not sure it is. But they say it’s the most important — inflation is the most important, but that’s part of economy. BRENNAN: The former president’s prescription is twofold. TRUMP: Vote Trump and your incomes will soar. BRENNAN: And a new line of false attack on Vice President Harris. TRUMP: Kamala went full communist. You heard that? She went full communist. She wants to destroy our country after causing catastrophic inflation. BRENNAN: We’ll tell you why that’s wrong and how the voters see the candidates’ handling of the economy in our new CBS News poll. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick: “Welcome to the world of establishment media playing speech police, deciding whose rhetoric is so over the line that their delicate viewers must be warned that it is ‘false’ and/or ‘wrong’ without any subsequent justification offered for the effort to discredit the candidate. I await her equal vigilance with Kamala Harris or Tim Walz claims about how the ‘fascist’ Trump will ‘end democracy,’ ‘destroy NATO’ or ‘cut’ Social Security.” Rating: THREE out of FIVE Screams   ■ August 12: Liberal Media Scream: PBS anchor falsely claims ‘no evidence’ of Walz’s stolen valor (Washington Examiner post) Imagine if a Republican military hero, say, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), lied about the high points of his career in the U.S. Marine Corps while running for vice president. The media would be looking at every word he spoke on his career and displaying his misstatements and lies on the front pages of every newspaper. But with Gov. Tim Walz (D-MN), the Democratic vice presidential pick, the media have decided to look past his long list of fake claims about serving in “war” and Afghanistan while in the National Guard. What’s more, some even claim that there is no evidence of his fabrications. This week’s Liberal Media Scream features PBS New Hour anchor Amna Nawaz in the no-evidence camp. On Friday, for example, she said Vance has “no evidence” of his claims against Walz despite nonstop postings by amateur fact-checkers on social media. She said, “This is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004,” noting that former President Donald Trump’s campaign manager, Chris LaCivita, was behind the swiftboat attacks. She asked, “Why run with these attacks when there’s no evidence for what they’re saying right now?” Guest Eliana Johnson, editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, countered, “There’s no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume.” To which Nawaz demanded: “In what way specifically?” From Friday’s PBS News Hour, in which Johnson was joined by Jonathan Capehart, associate editor of the Washington Post: AMNA NAWAZ: While we’ve seen Mr. Trump continue with personal attacks and kind of veering way off message, we’ve also seen from Sen. Vance focusing now on Tim Walz’s military career. This is a new line of attack we’ve seen open up from Republicans. We know Mr. Walz served in the Army National Guard for 24 years before retiring. And we’ve heard Vance attack him in this way from time to time. SEN. J.D. VANCE: I did it honorably, and I’m very proud of my service. When Tim Walz was asked by his country to go to Iraq, you know what he did? He dropped out of the Army and allowed his unit to go without him. AMNA NAWAZ: Eliana, this is so reminiscent of that swiftboating attack on John Kerry back in 2004. We know the same man is behind it. He’s running the Trump campaign now, Chris LaCivita. Why run with these attacks when there’s no evidence for what they’re saying right now? ELIANA JOHNSON: Well, I do think there’s some evidence for what they’re saying, but let’s look at it in two parts. One is the issue on the merits, where I think there’s no question Tim Walz has padded and inflated his resume. And the second is his military resume. NAWAZ: In what way specifically? JOHNSON: Well, J.D. Vance mentioned that the timing of his retirement is suspect, and I think it would take a little bit longer to talk about the timeline of that. But the — NAWAZ: He’s alleging that he retired because his unit was being deployed. JOHNSON: Right. He knew that they were going to be called up. He had gotten a warning that they were going to be called up, and he said in a press release for his campaign, if called up, I have a duty to serve. He didn’t do that. It’s clear he has — he’s inflated this, and he’s made it a part of his biography. By the way, this has been an issue in every single one of Walz’s campaigns. But, separately, I think there’s a question of how significant is this going to be down the road? You mentioned the swiftboat veterans. Those attacks were effective, but they were levied against the presidential nominee of the Democratic Party, John Kerry, back in 2004 — NAWAZ: They were also discredited. JOHNSON: — which is, which is different. Brent Baker, vice president of research and publications for the Media Research Center, explained our weekly pick