After one news cycle staying out of the left’s manufactured scandal of former President Trump’s Monday visit to Arlington National Cemetery with some of the families of the 13 Americans killed at the Kabul airport (as they were busy drooling over Vice President Harris’s bus tour), ABC joined the fake hubbub on Thursday’s Good Morning America about Trump “politiciz[ing] the military” and running mate JD Vance’s “charged language” telling Harris to “go to hell.”
After a piece celebrating Harris’s Georgia bus tour seeking “to expand the map”, unofficial Biden-Harris spokesperson Mary Bruce huffed about “video show[ing] [Trump] visiting some of the grave sites of some of the 13 service members who were killed in that attack on Afghanistan” in order “to highlight Harris and this administration’s handling of that chaotic troop withdrawal”, but that was beneath the dignity of all that is good.
State-run media on ABC with Mary Bruce channeling her inner North Korean news lady as, after giddily touting the Harris-Walz bus tour, turning her ire on JD Vance for "using some charged language" against Harris over Afghanistan and that Trump's trying to "politicize the miltary" pic.twitter.com/98bbpakvN9
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 29, 2024
“But filming is prohibited just for this reason, to not politicize the military. Now, some families like that of Staff Sergeant Ryan Knauss said they gave Trump permission. They said it’s sad to restrict how the fallen are honored,” Bruce kvetched.
Of course, the liberal media went running and found a Gold Star family whose loved one is buried nearby the soldier whose grave Trump visited and took pictures at as a way of thumbing their noses at Trump:
But overnight, we heard from another Gold Star family, the sister of Sergeant Andrew Marckasano. who died by suicide in 2020 after eight tours of combat. His grave is also shown in this video. And she said, “we hope that those visiting this sacred site understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom and they are honored and respected accordingly.”
Bruce closed with hushed tones about Vance: “[B]ut JD Vance firing back at that criticism, using some charged language, saying that Kamala Harris, the sitting Vice President, ‘can go to hell’”.
CBS Mornings kept focused on the partisan narratives. Co-host Tony Dokoupil proclaimed Trump was “fac[ing] backlash” and “a growing controversy” in the form of “an altercation that occurred on the grounds” of Arlington.
Like Bruce, chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes celebrated the Harris-Walz bus tour: “Southeastern Georgia is Republican territory, but Vice President Harris and her running mate, Tim Walz, are rolling through anyway.”
Fact-check: Misleading. Biden-Harris won the county containing Savannah, Chatham County, by roughly 20 points (58.6 percent to 39.9 percent) as well as one across the Ogeechee and Little Ogeechee Rivers by almost 25 points (61.3 percent to 37.2 percent).
Cordes largely reracked her partisan spin from Wednesday’s CBS Evening News (click “expand”):
CORDES: So far, she has stayed mum on the controversy over her opponent’s visit to Arlington National Cemetery on Monday. Defense officials tell CBS News that some Trump staffers got, “aggressive, both verbally and physically”, when a cemetery official tried to prevent them from bringing a campaign photographer onto the grounds. Federal law prohibits election-related activity in the cemetery. The Trump team insists their cameraman was invited by the family members of Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover, and Hoover’s family agrees. They also posed with Trump at Hoover’s grave site Monday. But there was another headstone in the picture, belonging to Master Sergeant Andrew Marckasano, who died in 2020. In a statement to CBS News, Marckasano’s sister said her understanding was that the Trump campaign staffer did not adhere to the rules. “We hope that those visiting this sacred site,” she said, “understand that these were real people who sacrificed for our freedom.”
VANCE: The altercation at Arlington cemetery is the media creating a story where I don’t think there is one.
CORDES: In Erie, Pennsylvania, Trump’s VP nominee J.D. Vance sought to shift the focus to Harris.
VANCE: And she wants to yell at Donald Trump because he showed up, she can — she can go to hell.
CORDES: That is pretty unusual language for the campaign trail, and the fact is that Harris hasn’t yelled at trump for going to Arlington. She hasn’t said anything about the situation at all. The Kamala Harris campaign spokesperson said the situation is pretty sad, and he said it’s not unusual for a Trump campaign.
NBC’s Today only offered a smidge of respite.
Senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez acknowledging “[f]our military family members praised their interactions at the ceremony with staff and Mr. Trump, telling NBC News they did not witness an altercation” and played sound of Kelly Barnett — who lost her son, Marine Staff Sergeant Taylor Hoover, on that horrible day — praising Trump.
He did, however, remove the part that aired on NBC Nightly News where she blamed the Biden-Harris regime for her son’s death.
That’s where the fairness ended as NBC repeatedly played a clip of veteran Paul Rieckhoff blasting Trump as “disrespectful” for treating Arlington like “Disney World”.
For the uninitiated, Rieckhoff is a liberal operative and a long favored guest of MSNBC, specifically Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace. In July 2021, he argued January 6 was worse than 9/11 since “Osama bin Laden never took over the Capitol”. Rewinding all the way back to March 2004, he was selected by Democrats to deliver the party’s weekly radio address.
Co-host Craig Melvin falsely claimed Trump was “taking heat for taking his campaign to one of the most sacred landmarks in the country” and insisted “some veterans groups are slamming as disrespectful.”
Gutierrez was also syrupy about Harris-Walz in contrast to claiming Trump “spark[ed] new controversy over his visit to what many consider hallowed ground” and “politicizing” it.
To see the relevant transcripts from August 29, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
