There were some 2 million people crammed into downtown Toronto on Monday to celebrate the Raptors’ championship victory in the NBA finals, when shots rang out in an area containing roughly 60,000 people. Despite at least four people being shot (and luckily no deaths), NBC Nightly News decided they didn’t have time to cover that story. But they did have time to promote Democratic New Jersey Senator and 2020 candidate Cory Booker’s “Big Idea” of baby bonds.
While CBS Evening News led with the Toronto shooting, NBC began with a shooting at a courthouse in Dallas where there were no injuries and the only person killed was the shooter. NBC was quick to point out the shooter’s use of an “assault-style rifle” and lumped him into the “right-wing”. ABC’s World News Tonight relegated the Toronto shooting to a news brief in their “Index of Other News”.
A few minutes later, NBC anchor Lester Holt boasted about the upcoming first Democratic debate of the election season, and about Booker, who spoke with the network “about his vision to benefit America's next generation.”
“We met Booker in a section of Columbia, South Carolina, wrestling with the economic realities of America's racial wealth gap. Booker believes baby bonds will be particularly impactful for minority families,” NBC correspondent Harry Smith told viewers after hyping the Senator’s record.
Presenting Booker with a strawman of his critics, Smith remarked that, “There are people in America who will hear baby bonds and they’ll say this is just a different word for reparations.” But Smith had already admitted that the baby bonds would have a disproportionate benefit according to Booker’s hopes for the program.
Smith then admitted that money would be handed out “on a sliding scale”, a disproportionate management and distribution. “Booker's baby bonds program would put money into an account for every newborn in America,” he touted. “Managed by the Treasury Department, some accounts would be worth nearly $50,000 by the time the child turns 18.” Yet, liberals were irate that President George W. Bush wanted personal savings accounts for Social Security.
There was also no critique regarding Booker’s plan to install a new federal inheritance tax on top of the federal estate tax, a one-two death tax wallop:
SMITH: What does this cost?
BOOKER: This costs $60 billion which we could pay for by doing things like very simply going back to the inheritance tax of the long-ago era of 2009. This is a chance to make sure your kid has a fair shot no matter what zip code you're born in. This is about creating a fair playing field.
SMITH: Baby bonds, Cory Booker's big idea.
Among the other things NBC found more important than the Toronto shooting: a plane hit by turbulence and a look back at O.J. Simpson’s car chase in that white Ford Bronco. Perhaps it had something to do with Canada’s already strict gun laws.
Ironically despite NBC's not having covered it, the Toronto shooting would meet the standard of the inflated mass-shooting statistic that NBC themselves have touted in the past.
The transcripts are below, click "expand" to read:
NBC Nightly News
June 17, 2019
7:11:38 p.m. EasternLESTER HOLT: Just nine days now until the first 2020 Democratic primary debate here on NBC, and tonight in our series My Big Idea, Senator Cory Booker tells our Harry Smith about his vision to benefit America's next generation.
[Cuts to video]
HARRY SMITH: What is your big idea?
SEN. CORY BOOKER: My big idea is baby bonds. That every child born in America should have a savings account, should have a bond, so when you're 18, every kid in America has a stake in this economy.
SMITH: As the almost famous Mayor of Newark, New Jersey--
BOOKER: A new day is dawning in Newark.
SMITH: --Cory Booker made headlines for helping neighbors in distress. He took his seat in the U.S. Senate in 2013. We met Booker in a section of Columbia, South Carolina, wrestling with the economic realities of America's racial wealth gap. Booker believes baby bonds will be particularly impactful for minority families.
There are people in America who will hear baby bonds and they’ll say this is just a different word for reparations.
BOOKER: Well, it goes to every single child. And we know that there's differentials in wealth that are inherited from bigoted policies of our past that excluded families from doing things that created wealth.
SMITH: On a sliding scale, Booker's baby bonds program would put money into an account for every newborn in America. Managed by the Treasury Department, some accounts would be worth nearly $50,000 by the time the child turns 18.
What does this cost?
BOOKER: This costs $60 billion which we could pay for by doing things like very simply going back to the inheritance tax of the long-ago era of 2009. This is a chance to make sure your kid has a fair shot no matter what zip code you're born in. This is about creating a fair playing field.
SMITH: Baby bonds, Cory Booker's big idea. Harry Smith, NBC News, Columbia, South Carolina.
