Following Hillary Clinton’s latest flip-flop and move to the left in opposing the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the CBS Evening News saw no interest in informing their viewers of this announcement after she strongly backed it while secretary of state in President Barack Obama’s first term.
In contrast, both ABC’s World News Tonight and NBC Nightly News surprisingly stepped up to the plate to cover this story with full stories along with the fact that both correspondents labeled Clinton’s decision a “flip-flop” from her time in the Obama administration.
On ABC, anchor David Muir told viewers prior to a report from Clinton correspondent Cecilia Vega that Clinton was “making news” by “breaking with President Obama on a controversial issue” and it being “the fourth time in just weeks she's drawn a line with the President as she battles to hold onto her lead.”
Vega went onto explain from Des Moines, Iowa that this “bombshell happen[ed] not long ago here in Iowa and this is Hillary Clinton’s biggest White House split yet.” Speaking of Clinton’s move in an interview with Judy Woodruff of PBS, Vega dubbed it “[a] political flip-flop on his 12-nation trade pack, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which she once backed as secretary of state.”
She further charted Clinton’s numerous issues in which she’s broken with her former boss and possible Democratic presidential opponent in Vice President Joe Biden:
It's Clinton's fourth major split from her former boss in less than a month. From her opposition to the Keystone Pipeline to calling for a no fly zone in Syria and saying the administration's deportation strategy no longer works. Separating from the White House and, tonight, the Joe Biden threat looming.
Meanwhile, NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt stated that Clinton “broke away from the President on one of his legacy policies” in that she “made an about face on this one highly controversial issue.”
As part of the network’s lone segment on the 2016 campaign, national correspondent Peter Alexander emphasized that “it’s a stunning break from the Obama White House” coming “[j]ust days after a massive 12-nation trade deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership it is called, Clinton gave the deal a thumbs down.”
Alexander elaborated that Clinton’s pander to the left is “a flip-flop for Clinton who vigorously advocated for the deal as secretary of state, but political analysts say today's move helps her with organized labor, neutralizes Bernie Sanders, who fiercely opposes the deal, and isolates Vice President Joe Biden if he joins the race as the only major Democratic candidate supporting it.”
Instead of covering this development, CBS aired an interview chief White House correspondent Major Garrett conducted with Jeb Bush that focused mainly on his stumbles in the polls and continued the network-wide assault on Ben Carson for his comments about how he’d behave if confronted by a mass shooter.
