Between Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, the “big three’ of ABC, CBS, and NBC used their flagship AM news shows to hit President Biden from the left by touting the “raw” “anger” of Arab Democrat voters in Michigan “register[ing] their displeasure” by voting “uncommitted” and “sending a message” to President Biden “over his handling of the war in Gaza.”
Left out of any story was further expansion of what Arab voters in Michigan actually think about the war in Gaza and, specifically, Jewish people. If they had, they would have revealed how, for example, a Dearborn imam prayed a few months before the October 7 terror attacks for Allah to “eradicate” the “sick, disgusting Zionist regime”.
ABC’s Good Morning America had chief White House correspondent Mary Bruce on the case, who boasted on Tuesday that Arab Americans are “furious and frustrated over his handling of the war in Gaza” and thus “determined to put the President on notice” for his “refusal to push for an enduring ceasefire in Gaza.”
Like her other colleagues, Bruce gave vague soundbites to disheartened voters, but didn’t explain what they meant by needing Biden to “change course” or fight Israel’s “extremist government”.
Instead, she was in fluff mode over the “raw” emotion:
[A]fter months of Biden’s staunch backing of Israel and its war in Gaza, that support now sharply in doubt...facing mounting protests and growing pressure, the White House has tried to reach out to members of the community, but for many here, it may be too little too late. Their anger, raw.
By Wednesday, Bruce boasted Muslim Americans did indeed deliver with over 100,000 votes for “uncommitted”, “sending the President a message” that they’re “[f]urious over Biden's handling of Israel’s war in Gaza”.
She again went to Michiganders without any substance to what they want to see happen. No “river to the sea”, no mentions of wanting “Palestine” as a country to return in place of Israel (click “expand”):
YASMEEN KADOUH: We're not only angry, we’re not only upset, but we feel like we’re completely put off.
BRUCE: Lexi Zeidan, who supported Biden in 2020, helped organize the opposition.
LEXI ZEIDAN: Biden has lost my vote.
BRUCE: She is well aware that turning away from Biden could help Trump, who is an even stauncher supporter of Israel and supported a ban on immigrants from Muslim majority countries. [TO ZEIDAN] If sitting out and not voting for Biden means you may be helping Donald Trump get elected. Is that a risk worth taking?
ZEIDAN: It might come down to us experiencing short term pain with Trump in office for long term gain where we have to have a Democratic Party that actually stands on its values.
BRUCE: They're demanding the President back a permanent ceasefire. Biden saying a temporary deal is days away. In a statement, Biden touting his win and thanking voters who made their voice heard.
The skids for Bruce were greased as, in a tease, Michael Strahan trumpeted voters as having “sen[t] a message” by “com[ing] out in forec”.
Nevermind how the publisher of a major Deaborn-based news outlet has, according to our friends at the Free Beacon, called on Arabs at a 2022 rally “to fight Israel with ‘stones’ and ‘guns’ and praised the fedayeen, or Islamic militants” and praised Hamas as “freedom fighters.”
Something else Bruce and her competitors at CBS and NBC ignored? The radicalism of Dearborn Mayor Abdullah Hammoud, whom the Free Beacon noted “has called Israel an ‘apartheid system,’ falsely accused Israel of bombing a Gaza hospital, and called for the eradication of the Jewish state.”
Pivoting to CBS Mornings, co-host and Democratic donor Gayle King said Tuesday that Biden “faces a challenge...from a possible protest vote over his response to the war in Gaza.” Ah, yes, “response” is doing a lot of heavy lifting there.
Correspondent Ed O’Keefe gave the group a large runway, explaining Hammoud leads a city with “one of the highest percentages of Arab Americans in the country” whose “political leaders...strongly oppose the President’s support for Israel and its war with Hamas.”
King was again milquetoast on Wednesday on the results, reporting “more than 100,000 Democrats voted uncommitted to protest Mr. Biden’s support of Israel’s war in Gaza.” O’Keefe described it as “a wake-up call” and “sizable protest vote” and “discontent” “over the war in Gaza.”
Co-host Tony Dokoupil had an interesting reaction to O’Keefe’s report: “[I]n November, those protest votes could hand the Palestinians back to Hamas, and America back to Donald Trump.”
On NBC, Today had senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez dispatched to Michigan. Tuesday’s show had a short nod to these voters, arguing Biden was facing “fierce backlash from the state’s huge Arab American population, demanding he support a ceasefire in Gaza.”
Fast-forward to Wednesday and NBC relayed more esoteric descriptions (click “expand”):
GUTIERREZ: Michigan, of course, is expected to be one of the closest swing states and now, as you mentioned, a group protesting President Biden and the war in Gaza managed to get more than 100,000 votes. This morning, President Biden and former President Trump coming off huge wins in Michigan.
UNCOMMITTED SUPPORTER #2: We demand a permanent ceasefire now.
GUTIERREZ: But it’s these voters who shook up the Democratic primary.
UNCOMMITTED SUPPORTER #3: If he doesn’t get it together and change what he’s doing — [SCREEN WIPE] — we will not vote for him in November.
GUTIERREZ: Overnight, an extremely unusual watch party for voters who cast their ballots not for a candidate, but for uncommitted in protest of President Biden’s handling of the Israel-Hamas war.
UNCOMMITTED SUPPORTER #4: I didn’t feel good about voting for Joe Biden. He’s been pretty complicit about the genocide happening in Palestine.
(....)
GUTIERREZ: Here in Dearborn, Arab Americans make up a majority of the population. And longtime Democrat Ramzi Kassem told me he was furious with the Biden administration over the death toll in Gaza.
(....)
GUTIERREZ: Back here in battleground Michigan, the uncommitted vote clearly shows that the Biden campaign faces several challenges with Arab American and young voters.
Again, nothing about how an Imam said at a pro-Hamas rally in Dearborn on October 10 that Israel’s behavior has stoked “fire in our hearts that will burn that state” of Israel “until its demise” or how Imam Usama Abdulghani said at a community gathering on October 14 that the terror attacks a week earlier against Jews were “one of the days of God” and a “miracle”.
As for the war, Abdulghani said those defending Gaza were “honorable soldiers” against “Zionist occupies” whose ship “is sinking.”
But, seeing as how even the Biden White House targeted The Wall Street Journal for sharing these facts in a column, perhaps the networks chose to simply keep their heads down.
To see the relevant transcripts from February 27, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC). To see the relevant transcripts from February 28, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
