Many were up in arms Wednesday after Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins posted a video of himself walking through the Nazi concentration camp: Auschwitz. In the now deleted video, Higgins touched on current political issues dealing with national security and defense, which prompted much of the outrage. ABC and NBC were the only networks that though the controversy needed to be dragged out that evening. But while they chose to pound on the GOP Congressman they were still blacking out any news about how Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane were under FBI investigation for bank fraud.
ABC’s reporting was little more than a play-by-play of Higgins’ video. “This is the video, shot on the grounds of Auschwitz that has Congressman Clay Higgins under fire tonight,” said reporter Linsey Davis on World News Tonight. “The congressman then stands in the crematorium.” The report on NBC Nightly News appeared to attack Higgins for what he did despite his apology and deletion of the video.
“Now to the explosion of outrage at a Louisiana Congressman,” hyped fill-in Anchor Savannah Guthrie. “He has now apologized for a video he made inside the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. It's not the first time he's faced controversy.”
The report was conducted by Gabe Gutierrez, who said that “it's not what Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins said but where that's stirring outrage.” “On Twitter, museum officials scolded the Congressman: ‘Inside a former gas chamber, there should be mournful silence. It's not a stage,’” he noted. Instead of leaving the scolding to those who run the memorial, Gutierrez sat down with Steven Goldstein of the so-called Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect.
Goldstein, an outspoken activist, has a proven history of using the weight of the name “Anne Frank Center” to hammer people on the right. “It was pure and simple a grossest exploitation of the Holocaust for his own personal purposes. How dare Congressman Higgins use Auschwitz as his own personal TV studio,” Goldstein shouted to the NBC reporter.
Gutierrez demonstrated just how usuriously he took his research for the story because the credentials of the Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect were debunked by The Atlantic back in April. “It may not have leaders with a scholarly background, a mass membership, or institutional standing among Jewish groups and Holocaust museums,” they wrote. “But because it talks a big game and wields the name of Anne Frank, the media has awarded it authority it never earned.”
While ABC and NBC were quick to pounce on the misguided video of a GOP congressman, they still refused to report the fact that Senator Bernie Sanders and his wife Jane Sanders were under investigation by the FBI for bank fraud. According to the accusations, when Jane Sanders was President of Burlington College she requested a loan from a bank for the school. On the application, she reportedly claimed to had raised $2.6 million. But in reality, she had raised only $700 thousand, which came to light after she drove the school into bankruptcy. And on top of that, her husband’s office was thought to have put pressure on the bank to approve the loan.
The networks have shown they exercise selective outrage when it comes to gaffes involving the infamous concentration camp. Back in January of 2015, they yawned at how President Obama and Vice President Biden snubbed the 70th anniversary of the camp’s liberation. Wednesday was just another example of how the liberal media love to exploit and showcase gaffes and faux pas committed by Republicans while ignoring the serious accusations of wrong doing by Democrats.
Transcript below:
NBC Nightly News
July 5, 2017
7:10:50 PM EasternSAVANNAH GUTHRIE: Now to the explosion of outrage at a Louisiana Congressman. He has now apologized for a video he made inside the Nazi concentration camp Auschwitz. It's not the first time he's faced controversy. NBC's Gabe Gutierrez has the story.
[Cuts to video]
CLAY HIGGINS: They said would squeeze 700 people in here.
GABE GUTIERREZ: It's not what Louisiana Congressman Clay Higgins said but where that's stirring outrage. This five-minute video shared on Higgins’ Facebook page was recorded inside a former Nazi death camp, the Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum in Poland. As he tours a gas chamber, Higgins warns the U.S. should be more aggressive in fighting terrorism.
HIGGINS: The reason why homeland security must be squared away.
GUTIERREZ: On Twitter, museum officials scolded the Congressman. “Inside a former gas chamber, there should be mournful silence. It's not a stage.” The Anti-Defamation League and the Anne Frank Center also took notice.
STEVEN GOLDSTEIN: It was pure and simple a grossest exploitation of the Holocaust for his own personal purposes. How dare Congressman Higgins use Auschwitz as his own personal TV studio?
GUTIERREZ: Later today Higgins retracted the video. “My intent was to offer a reverent homage to those who were murdered, he said. My sincere apology for any unintended pain is extended.” This is not the first time the freshman Republican congressman and former sheriff had courted controversy. In a Facebook post last month after the London terror attack, Higgins wrote that “the free world, all of Christendom is at war with Islamic horror.” And when it comes to radicalized suspects, the U.S. should “kill them all.”
HIGGINS: The United States is more accessible to terror like this.
GUTIERREZ: Reporter: Tonight he is apologetic after critics say this message went too far. Gabe Gutierrez, NBC News.
