On Monday night and Tuesday morning, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC continued to trumpet Texas Democrats fleeing to Illinois, New York, and other blue bastions across the country because Republicans hurt their feelings by wanting to redraw the state’s congressional maps.
But in addition to the typical love notes, CBS and NBC went as far as accepting and peddling their spin that Republicans are the ones holding up needed relief for the Hill Country after the catastrophic July 4 weekend floods as opposed to Democrats and their indefinite temper tantrum.
NBC correspondent Ryan Chandler led off the Austin coverage on Monday’s Nightly News by touting warnings from Democrat Governors Cathy Hochul (NY) and Gavin Newsom (CA) they too would pursue new congressional maps to further skew toward their party.
However, as we note below in the X post, Chandler left out an important detail:
Chandler returned for Tuesday’s Today and opened in part with an attempt at a cutesy play-on-words: “[S]ome of the Democrats in Chicago told me they packed for three [weeks]. They are finding support in friendly territory. Governors in California, Illinois, and New York threatening if Texas messes with the map, they’ll mess with Texas.”
He went as far as referring to the Republican redraw as “the political stunt” before us, not the “defiant” Democrats going on vacation.
The Texas-based correspondent concluded with the gross claim about what Republicans care about:
Back on Monday, Chandler had help from anchor Tom Llamas who took his own shots at Texas Republicans by bemoaning “the Texas-size political battle” over “Republican leaders look[ing] to gerrymander congressional maps” and “open a whole new can of worms” because of their “controversial, gerrymandering redistricting map.”
Monday’s CBS Evening News similarly peddled this grotesque lie. After an on-screen boo-boo of putting up the current map when they meant to show the proposed one, senior White House correspondent Ed O’Keefe started with all the usual updates about this being a Trump demand and the state House was unable to meet quorum Monday due to the absent Democrats.
It was here that he pivoted to floods with State Representative James Bucy (D) insisting without pushback he and his colleagues, not Abbott and the GOP, who are wanting to help those affected.
He also invited Bucy’s colleague Ann Johnson to weigh in, wondering what she’d say “to the Republican charge that you guys leaving the state allows them to turn around and say, they’re playing games, they’re avoiding the flood debate.”
Tuesday’s CBS Mornings had O’Keefe back on the case, starting off with a lone mention of the flooding aid:
[D]ozens of Texas state Democratic lawmakers remain here in the suburbs of Illinois, avoiding a special session back home originally called primarily to focus on the aftermath of deadly floods across the Lone Star State, but it’s a fight over the state’s future congressional map that has become a national fight.
These officials came off as petty with soundbites following from Bucy telling O’Keefe gerrymandering is “an American people” and the rush to leave Texas was worth it to save the country: “If Greg Abbott and Donald Trump get away with stealing five seats in Texas, that’s just the beginning and it will impact all of us.”
While CBS and NBC were sucking up to Texas Democrats and taking their bait on the Hill Country flood relief, ABC only did the former. Like he did hours earlier, chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl took to Monday’s World News Tonight as the only network reporter to point out Democrats also gerrymander.
However, Karl joined NBC’s Chandler in touting Hochul’s hypocritical and likely fruitless promise to gerrymander New York.
Karl returned on Tuesday’s Good Morning America and gently pressed on liberal bubbles by pointing out previous stunts by Lone Star State leftists have failed: “Texas Democrats have tried this move before back in 2021 and in 2003. In both cases, the standoff went on for weeks, but the Democrats eventually returned to Texas and the move failed to stop the Republicans.”
To see the relevant transcripts from August 4, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC). And to see the relevant transcripts from August 5, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
