On Monday, ABC’s Good Morning America and NBC’s Today saw no reason amid their latest hyperventilating about President Trump fulfilling a campaign promise of shrinking the size of government — and that doing so has triggered “a constitutional crisis” — to note a CBS poll showing his approval at a record 53 percent.
After having been largely and bizarrely sedated since Trump retook office, ABC’s Good Morning America was crestfallen over the federal bureaucracy having to even make an infinitesimal attempt to live within its means.
Co-host and former Clinton official George Stephanopoulos huffed that “we’re seeing the human toll of these moves” as senior political correspondent Rachel Scott found seemingly random government workers to share their plight (which almost certainly means they were offered up as part of a coordinated PR campaign) (click “expand”):
SCOTT: Government contractors like Jacqueline Devine faced with confusion and uncertainty.
JACQUIELINE DEVINE: We all want to be more efficient and more effective. Yeah, nobody’s contesting that. But an out right stop before you do anything critical just seems, honestly, I gotta use the word cruel.
SCOTT: USAID employee Amy Uccello says she was on maternity leave when she had to take her baby to collect her belongings from the office with a security escort.
AMY UCCELLO: I had two days to left to use my health benefits for myself and my baby.
SCOTT: So, back to that buyout offer to federal workers, there will be another hearing in that case later today, but the administration is still pressing on, overnight, ordering the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau to stop doing any work. That effectively shuts down the agency that was created to protect consumer finances.
Scott was also dismayed that Trump and Vice President Vance have grown frustrated with the left hiding behind activist progressives in robes, touting Senator Adam Schiff (D-CA) deeming such disagreement “lawlessness” and a clip of some fear porn from Senator Chris Murphy (D-CT) on ABC’s This Week that America’s on the verge of a “serious constitutional crisis.”
NBC’s Today started its DOGE segment with co-host Craig Melvin offering a laughably standard, liberal description of the CFPB: “[S]ome new developments in the administration’s push to overhaul the government, including a move to shut down an agency that’s designed to protect consumers.”
Neither Melvin nor chief Capitol Hill correspondent Ryan Nobles elaborated, so we’ll point readers to what National Review’s Noah Rothman had to say about the agency that’s been the baby of Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
Nobles also gave credence to the left’s narrative being fact: “[T]heir opponents are trying to slow these moves by challenging them in court. But even that might not be enough to stop Trump, leading to concerns the country may be on the verge of a constitutional crisis.”
“President Trump praising Elon Musk this weekend and his efforts to reshape the federal government....Trump doubles down after Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency has shaken up Washington in the last few weeks, gaining access to the country’s most sensitive payment systems and disrupting U.S. foreign aid programs,” he added, painting a country in chaos and no substantive reason to even think of shrinking government.
After acknowledging the administration’s laments of judicial roadblocks, Nobles joined ABC’s Scott as he too cheered Democrats for “sounding the alarm.” For Nobles, he used Senator Andy Kim (D-NJ) from NBC’s Meet the Press insisting “we’re basically on the cusp of a constitutional crisis” because Trump has been “taking steps that are so clearly illegal.”
CBS Mornings also had the hyperbole, but at least they shared their own poll. Co-host Tony Dokoupil opened the Trump segment by saying “53 percent of Americans in the latest CBS news poll approve of the job the President has done so far.”
For her part, chief White House correspondent Nancy Cordes declared Trump had “decimat[ed] USAID, the agency that distributes humanitarian and development aid abroad” and wants “to do the same to” CFB, which “shield[s] consumers from predatory banks and lenders.”
Cordes too boosted Murphy’s “serious constitutional crisis” hoopla and touted warnings from CBS News contributor Samantha Vinograd: “Stability in the civil service is starting to dissipate. That’s going to have an impact today on the work underway, but also recruitment into the civil service going forward.”
Of course, CBS showed zero ethics in refusing to tell viewers that not only did she work for both the Obama and Biden administrations, but she spend the first Trump term trashing him on CNN.
Only towards the end of segment did Cordes admit Americans were liking what they saw:
But for now, Trump’s aggressive moves appear to be winning public support. In the new CBS News poll, 69 percent said they describe him as tough, 63 percent said energetic, though 66 percent said he hasn’t focused enough on lowering prices.
To see the relevant transcripts from February 10, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
