Saturday brought the simultaneously bizarre and outrageous development of New York Democratic Rep. Jamaal Bowman pulling the fire alarm in order to disrupt the House’s business as it eventually passed a 45-day continuing resolution to avert a government shutdown. Naturally, MSNBC’s Yasmin Vossoughian accepted the statement that it was just an accident.
At the end of a long diatribe against Republicans ranging from Speaker Kevin McCarthy to Rep. Matt Gaetz, Vossoughian added, “Last thing I wanna mention and then we’re going to take a quick break, there was a mention of Jamaal Bowman, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, and the pulling of some sort of fire alarm.”
That mention came from McCarthy during a press conference that MSNBC showed earlier. Vossoughian also stated, “I want to read for some reporting, so you understand what actually went on there. There were some reports that began to emerge about Representative Bowman, who was seen pulling some sort of fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building earlier today.”
Vossoughian gave this report at 3:32 PM Eastern, by which time photos had been released of Bowman pulling the alarm. Despite this, Vossoughian uncritically repeated a statement from Bowman’s office, “We got a statement on that saying ‘Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote, the congressman regrets any confusion,’ just to clarify some things on because I know there was some likely some folks—kind of, scratched their heads, wondering what it was they were asking Speaker McCarthy about.
🚨🚨NEW -- Capitol Police are circulating this photo of a man pulling the fire alarm in Cannon. Looks a lot like Jamaal Bowman pic.twitter.com/khzpigSvWI
— Jake Sherman (@JakeSherman) September 30, 2023
Bowman, who as a former school principal who knows candy does not fall from the ceiling upon the pulling of the fire alarm, did not trip over himself while running and pull the alarm in a freak accident. He is clearly standing by the alarm and deliberately pulling it.
Vossoughian and MSNBC would never give a Republican the benefit on the doubt if they were to pull the fire alarm with photographic evidence. Instead, Vossoughian went to break and on the other side of that break, conducted an interview with Rep. Jamie Raskin where she proceeded to ignore his fire-alarm pulling colleague as the two spent that entire time attacking Republicans.
Meanwhile, over at CNN's Smerconish, McCarthy's presser was the only immediate reference to the almost certain felony.
Here is a transcript for the September 30 show:
MSNBC Yasmin Vossoughian Reports
9/30/2023
3:32 PM ET
YASMIN VOSSOUGHIAN: Last thing I wanna mention and then we’re going to take a quick break, there was a mention of Jamaal Bowman, Congressman Jamaal Bowman, and the pulling of some sort of fire alarm. I want to read for some reporting, so you understand what actually went on there. There were some reports that began to emerge about Representative Bowman, who was seen pulling some sort of fire alarm in the Cannon House Office Building earlier today. We got a statement on that ‘Saying Congressman Bowman did not realize he would trigger a building alarm as he was rushing to make an urgent vote, the congressman regrets any confusion,’ just to clarify some things on because I know there was some likely some folks—kind of, scratched their heads, wondering what it was they were asking Speaker McCarthy about.
