Pay No Attention! Networks Pull Out Rhetorical Pom-Poms for Dems in Debate Recaps

On Friday, the “Big Three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC chose not to show on their top morning newscasts a single instance in which any of the Democratic senatorial candidates who debated Thursday night – Georgia incumbent Jon Ossoff, Maine’s Troy Jackson, and Michigan’s Abdul el-Sayed – were put on the defensive by their Republican opponents. Rather, they chalked it up to “personal” attacks, and the clips were hard to decipher amid a slew of cross-talk.

In other words, the networks set out to ensure viewers concluded the debates in these three crucial contests were no more than partisan food fights and not worth exploring further.

ABC’s Good Morning America put leftist activist Rachel Scott – who masquerades as a serious journalist – on this one. She immediately wanted viewers to know that the three debates were “contentious…with the President’s war in Iran and tariffs taking center stage.”

In other words, Trump – not anyone or anything else – was the be-all, end-all topic de jure.

“A fiery night of debates in three races that could determine control of the Senate, with Democrats repeatedly tying their Republican opponents to President Trump’s tariffs and the war in Iran,” she boasted, again framing the GOP as helpless and rudderless.

Scott muddied the waters with the Michigan debate between Islamist-friendly Democrat Abdul el-Sayed and former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers. Notice how Scott never put any substance to Rogers’s claims about el-Sayed’s ties to terrorists and terror-friendly groups and refusal to denounce them.

Instead, she chalked it all up to “personal attacks” against el-Sayed for simply being Muslim. (click “expand”):

EL-SAYED: Are you winning? Is anyone actually winning? That’s the kind of policy you’re going to get from a guy who wants to be a sock puppet for the Trump administration.

SCOTT: In Michigan, Democrat Dr. Abdul el-Sayed and Republican challenger, former Congressman Mike Rogers, exchanging personal attacks.

EL-SAYED: Are you going to go ahead, and say that I’m – I’m a – go ahead and say it.

ROGERS: No, I’m gonna say –

EL-SAYED: – no?

ROGERS: – which – did you not have family in Iran?

EL-SAYED: – no, you’ve been tiptoeing around it the whole – say it. Say it.

SCOTT: In a contentious moment, Rogers seemingly suggested that el-Sayed, who is Muslim, and his family had ties to terrorism.

ROGERS: No, no, well, let’s do this.

EL-SAYED: It’s ridiculous.

ROGERS: Let’s – let’s open up this can of worms.

EL-SAYED: You won’t respond.

ROGERS: I’ll tell you what my mother did. She was a – a – small –

EL-SAYED: You going after my mom?

SCOTT: el-Sayed firing back.

EL-SAYED: He wants this to be about anything but his own record.

ROGERS: Because he can’t talk about his record.

EL-SAYED: He’s okay if the federal government – no he’s okay if the federal government spies on you but he wants to make this about anybody else. Going after my mom, my sister. Got nothing actual to say about me.

Go here to see the full exchange on this Scott chopped up.

Scott could have played any of these clips instead about el-Sayed’s affiliations or policy positions:

Scott also ignored this moment, when el-Sayed refused to say whether Iran or Israel was the bigger threat to peace:

Or how about el-Sayed having refused to offer a statement about October 7:

Scott did the same shtick with the Georgia debate, bragging GOP Congressman Mike Collins was “on defense, pressed by Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff about the war in Iran that has sent fuel prices soaring.”

Following one short snippet each, Scott again summarized the debate on Ossoff’s terms: “Collins also defending the trade war, arguing the President is making things fair. Ossoff pushing back.”

Before concluding with President Trump’s Friday travels, she had one soundbite about Maine, which said nothing about Jackson, his policy views, or scandals: “But in Maine, a much different story. Republican incumbent Senator Susan Collins distancing herself from Trump.”

It was a similar scene at CBS, the supposedly “MAGA-coded” network. CBS Mornings co-host Gayle King said the three debates were “heated,” “very fiery,” and “very personal.”

Congressional correspondent Caitlin Huey-Burns adopted a similar shtick as ABC’s Scott, including the truncated exchange of an incensed el-Sayed over Rogers bringing up his mother.

What ABC, CBS, and NBC would all ignore? The issue at hand, which is that el-Sayed’s birth mother worked for the Islamic American Relief Agency (IARA), which the Treasury designated in 2004 as a supporter of terrorism.

Huey-Burns kept moving, though: “Democrat Abdul el-Sayed and Republican Mike Rogers faced off in a fiery first debate of the cycle in Michigan where tariffs loom large.”

A pair of short soundbites later, she shifted to Maine: “And a similar theme in Maine where Republican Senator Susan Collins is fending off a challenge from Democrat state lawmaker Troy Jackson.”

Her soundbites were framed as Jackson going after Collins as a Trump simpleton and supporter of the Iran war, while the Collins bite was her insisting she had “voted nine times to bring the war in Iran to an end.”

“Collins is vying for a sixth term in a state that Donald Trump lost three times, and she’s trying to distance herself from the President’s policies,” she added.

Huey-Burns never showed when Jackson was on defense, such as here:

For Georgia, Huey-Burns said this after a clip of Ossoff ripping controversial Collins staffers and then Collins blasting Ossoff for being silent on radicals like Hasan Piker and far-left donor Reid Hoffman: “Republican Congressman Mike Collins aligned himself with the President as polls show he faces an uphill battle against Democratic Senator Jon Ossoff.”

NBC’s Today had a truncated set of recaps as the debates shared a segment with the wild report about Ambassador to Greece Kimerly Guilfoyle.

Along with co-host Craig Melvin teasing a report on the “heated debates” in which candidates were “getting personal,” Saturday co-host Laura Jarrett doubled down on the “heated debates” line in going to senior White House correspondent Gabe Gutierrez.

For his part, Gutierrez relayed there were “fierce debates in critical Senate races overnight,” including “el-Sayed clashing with Republican Mike Rogers.”

Interestingly, Gutierrez skipped over Maine and went right to Georgia. But on Michigan, he vaguely said Rogers was “questioning el-Sayed’s credentials,” which was quite the esoteric way of describing Rogers raising concerns about his opponent’s ties to Islamists (click “expand”):

EL-SAYED: Go ahead and say it.

GUTIERREZ: Rogers questioning el-Sayed’s credentials.

ROGERS: You’re going to find out that this guy is not what he says he is. He is actually selling the best con I think I’ve ever seen.

GUTIERREZ: El-Sayed repeatedly linking Rogers to Trump.

EL-SAYED: Can you afford your gas? Can you afford your groceries? Under this guy? Who’s going to rubber-stamp everything Donald Trump tells him to rubber-stamp? In Georgia, incumbent Democrat Jon Ossoff trading jabs with Republican Mike Collins.

OSSOFF: Whatever Donald Trump says, Mike Collins does, doesn’t matter what it is, doesn’t think for himself.

COLLINS: My opponent is a radical, and he has left our state less safe, more expensive, and worse off.

To see the relevant transcripts from October 9, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).