NBC Inaugural Crew Gets Repeatedly SCHOOLED on Double Standards by McCarthy

Curtis Houck
January 20th, 2025 5:55 PM

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NBC News ran into a buzzsaw on Monday afternoon by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) as he repeatedly shredded the assembled liberal journalists over their obsession with January 6 pardons, the Trump prosecutions, the Biden crime family, the Panama Canal, and even the Hunter Biden laptop.

Today co-host Savannah Guthrie first stepped on the landmine, asking McCarthy about the impending pardons for those charged after the events of January 6, 2021.

McCarthy calmly explained this was something we all knew as Trump “told the American public” he’d do this whereas you “compare this to Joe Biden, who said he would never pardon his son, who have now, on the very last day, in the last 30 minutes, pardons his entire family.”

He added this was “terrible” and “it makes no sense to me” as “[a]ll it does is put a cloud over that you did something wrong.”

He continued:

[W]hy do you wait until 30 minutes before? Why did you tell the American public you would never pardon your son, and you do it? Now, the difference here is whether you agree or disagree about what President Trump’s going to do, he told the American public ahead of time, they put that into consideration whether they’d vote for him for president, so he’s just keeping a campaign promise.

Guthrie tried pressing again, but that went nowhere. NBC Nightly News anchor Lester Holt made another try at trapping McCarthy: “Is retribution still on the table for this new President?”

McCarthy tore into this narrative and turned the tables by explaining what Trump aides dealt with during the Biden years (click “expand”):

MCCARTHY: See, this is the thing that bothers me the post. For the people who are opposed to President Trump, all they talk about is retribution. I have not seen him put retribution into anybody when he’s had the power.

HOLT: But he’s talked about it.

MCCARTHY: But he — I’ve only seen the other side do retribution to him and everybody else. I will tell you this. Four years ago, when President Trump left office, everybody who worked for him got blackballed, that nobody could be hired. Nobody could work any place and then, everybody had to go through attorneys. Everybody was getting prosecuted. Everybody was being looked at. President Trump had to go through. And to — what the Democrats did to President Trump, they helped elect him by prosecuting him because what they misread with the American public, when they would judge — when they would prosecute him for something they would never anybody else in America, that’s when you literally felt across America, this is wrong.

Senior Washington correspondent Hallie Jackson complained about FBI director pick Kash Patel and an “enemies list” and questions about that during attorney general nominee Pam Bondi’s confirmation hearing, but McCarthy handled that too.

“What I listen to, too, is that they would follow the rule of law. They wouldn’t put — I do believe so, because I know Kash Patel, and, you know, it’s an interesting thing. I’ve watched people sit back and say, I want to go after you because you might do something in the future. We live in America, right. You’re — you’re innocent until proven guilty but now they’re going after this,” he continued.

Guthrie went to another topic in the classified documents probe, but McCarthy again turned this around on Biden (click “expand”):

GUTHRIE: I mean, we don’t have time to get into all of it, but you talk about upholding the rule of law. There was the prosecution, for example, in Florida for mishandling classified documents that seemed to be as clear as day. I mean, it — pursuing prosecution under those circumstances is not an abuse of the rule of law. It’s a pursuant — a vindication of the rule of law.

MCCARTHY: Okay, but this is all fair too. That — that was on President Trump. But at the very same moment you’re saying that, you had a President Joe Biden that had the documents inside his — inside his garage, but this is something that was different than the two. He had a document when he was a senator. I’ve been part of the gang of eight. At no time, at no place, a House or senator could ever take a classified document. Done deal. But he had one. Did he get prosecuted? No, no, what did they say? He’s too old. But he’s sitting as the President of the United States. So, this is what we talk about, fair treatment. So, when people on the other side of the aisle say, oh my God, President Trump may do something in the future, he hasn’t. Give us the time and place. Let him govern. If he does something wrong, that’s appropriate time to make an argument. But right now, I just watched a nation have an opportunity to heal. I watched world leaders come to this inaugural. I’ve watched people who spent millions of dollars against him sit right behind him and are excited.

Following a brief back-and-forth in which McCarthy educated Holt on the Panama Canal bluster, senior White House correspondent Kelly O’Donnell went full ‘but who will pick the cotton’ with McCarthy regarding farm workers and mass deportations (click “expand”):

O’DONNELL: If he wants to accomplish things with mass deportations, that there wouldn’t be sufficient funding to actually make that happen, or there wouldn’t be the political will when it reaches into farm communities, you’re from Bakersfield, California, where undocumented workers keep the economy going. Is there a risk that what he has promised could come up against political problems for him?

MCCARTHY: Well, this is where you got to understand what has he said, even in today. He’s not referring to those people. He’s referring to those more than 1.3 million who are sitting in jail. Someone who came here illegally and have created a felony, who have killed somebody, who had raped somebody. He says, let’s remove them. If he gets to a different level, that will be a different discussion, but he has not said that yet. So, I think from a standpoint for America, we should pause and let’s get this because I’ve watched cities across America, New York, everywhere else, Massachusetts, it’s the — the greatest threat, the state emergency is the southern border.

KRISTEN WELKER: Mr. Speaker, when I interviewed him, he was very clear, he wants to remove everyone who’s here illegally. You’re right, he wants to start with the criminals. Absolutely, that’s his focus right now. Is that something that you think is feasible? Would you support that?

MCCARTHY: Removing the criminals? Yes.

WELKER: Well, everyone. In addition to the criminals, in addition to those, because —

MCCARTHY: To be fair, if somebody comes here illegally, you’re breaking the law.

WELKER: — yeah.

MCCARTHY: — so let’s — let’s create a country that’s -- that can maintain its law. But I don’t think, if you look at America, 85 percent of America agrees. If you have come here illegally, and you have committed a felony, you need to leave. And I think that’s where we’re starting. That’s where we’re going.

Before cutting him loose, NBC tried one more time on the January 6 pardons. McCarthy quickly reminded them of Trump’s openness and ended with an absolute decimation of the press for their election predictions, the Biden family pardons, and even their manufactured narrative about Hunter Biden’s laptop having been fake:

But there’s something — there’s something here, underreporting here, okay? This is the first time in more than 30 years a Republican President won the popular vote. You sat at this table for hours wondering whether this election would be close or not. He won every single swing state. The country has made a decisive decision. They have all the information about January 6. They have everything. The only thing new they have today is that the past president, Joe Biden, just pardoned his entire family. His entire family just got — his brother, who said he wasn’t involved with his son getting money from China, that we found out that became true. A laptop that they told the American public before the last election and they used 51 people, former CIA directors, said this was false when they knew that it wasn’t. So, I mean, to go back and pardon things and lie about it is a real difficulty.

To see the relevant NBC transcript form January 20, click here.

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