Saturday Morning Shows on Venezuela: ABC Claims It Could Inspire Terrorism, CBS Fumes

With so little known at the time regarding the overnight U.S. military operations inside Venezuela resulting in the successful capture of dictator Nicolas Maduro and his wife (without a single loss of American life), the Saturday morning broadcast network news shows were relatively uneventful on the bias front, except for a few mind-numbingly stupid hot takes.

ABC unsurprisingly contributed the biggest early whopper thanks to a Good Morning America report that speculated without evidence that taking action against a dangerous dictator could trigger terror attacks inside the United States.

 

Weekend co-host Janai Norman cued it up:

Meanwhile, the extraordinary nighttime operation naturally could be raising some security concerns here at home, so we’re going to check in now with ABC’s senior investigative reporter Aaron Katersky. No immediate threats, but this is always the case after something like this.

Katersky – who blamed ICE raids on the murder of two West Virginia National Guard troops by an Islamic radical and suggested the late Charlie Kirk’s views drew the kinds of tensions that left him dead – doubled down that he had no evidence to make this proclamation that a Maduro-inspired attack could be afoot, but would make it anyway:

Absolutely and we have so far heard, Janai, of no threat specific or otherwise as a result of this military operation, but any time the United States takes any kind of military action, there is a risk that somebody here at home could take it as a cue to act out.

To bolster his evidence-less claim, he invoked recent U.S. airstrikes in Syria: “[Y]esterday…the FBI charged an 18-year-old in North Carolina with plotting an ISIS-inspired mass stabbing attack in Charlotte and the FBI said the teen was motivated by recent U.S. strikes in Syria.”

After acknowledging the Trump administration’s long-held focus on Venezuelan-tied gang Tren de Aragua and the U.S. had existing narco-terrorism charges filed against Maduro and more were in order, he concluded by noting that while “it now appears this is the end of Maduro’s reign,” “[t]he way it was achieved though, guys, will put law enforcement in this country on alert for any possible reprisals.”

Contributor Steve Ganyard repeatedly offered a more forward-thinking view, such as here:

 

Over on CBS Saturday Morning, CBS News contributor Samantha Vinograd – who served in both the Obama and Biden regimes – was predictably incensed at the Trump administration’s “mind-boggling” refusal to bring in Congress (which would have resulted in leaks) and “unprecedented decision” to remove someone regardless of how “illegitimate” he was:

 

And before NBC could get its talking points in order and start spinning for the Maduro regime (like they did here and here on NBC Nightly News), Today offered analysis such as this from an official from back in the days of the Mattis Pentagon: