On Wednesday, all three broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) began their main evening newscasts with the latest on the supposedly destroyed hospital in Gaza — specifically, that U.S. intel agencies and even the President himself had confirmed all evidence pointed to a misfired Hamas rocket as the cause, not an Israeli airstrike. However, none of these networks dared seek comment from Representatives Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), who had not yet acknowledged that Israel was not responsible.
Shortly after the blast occurred, Tlaib posted on X (formerly Twitter): “Israel just bombed the Baptist Hospital killing 500 Palestinians (doctors, children, patients) just like that.”
Omar’s post read: “Bombing a hospital is among the gravest of war crimes. The IDF reportedly blowing up one of the few places the injured and wounded can seek medical treatment and shelter during a war is horrific.”
Despite the assessment of U.S. intel agencies that Israel was not responsible for the hospital blast, the two Congresswomen refused to issue any statement when confronted about them on Wednesday. As of this piece’s publication, both posts were still up.
With how often the American news media shriek about disinformation, it’s alarming that nobody from these broadcast networks sought to correct these demonstrably false assertions by two high-profile members of Congress. On ABC’s World News Tonight, foreign correspondent Martha Raddatz even called it an “enormous problem” that hundreds of millions of people across the Middle East refused to believe the U.S.’s assessment of the hospital blast:
DAVID MUIR: Martha, you and I have been talking about this, this White House knows the anger across the region. Many are simply not going to believe this.
RADDATZ: That’s exactly right, David. It is an enormous problem. The President knows that emotions are high, anger is intense, especially after the hospital blast, and the administration worries that Israels claims and intentions simply will not be believed.
CBS Evening News anchor Norah O’Donnell also lamented that the satellite images, intercepts, and proclamations of multiple intelligence agencies had failed to defuse the Israeli airstrike narrative: “All that data has done little to tamp down the anger sweeping across the region. Many still blaming Israel for the carnage.”
Meanwhile, on NBC, Nightly News anchor Lester Holt ran a soundbite from his interview with Jordanian Prime Minister Ayman Safadi, who insisted that “nobody” was convinced by the U.S.’s assessment of the incident: “Sir, nobody is buying that narrative in this part of the world.”
But despite all of their supposed frustration that the U.S. assessment was struggling to sway opinion, none of these networks bothered to confront the two vocal Representatives who were further muddying the waters. The media’s inability to hold these two Representatives accountable is part of their ongoing effort to conceal the most radical elements of the Democrat party from the eyes of the American electorate.
