ABC, CBS and NBC on Tuesday spun the end of the government shutdown from the perspective of angry liberals, hyping that Democrats are being “blasted by left-wing,” “progressives” who are unhappy about how the party bungled the impasse.
CBS This Morning co-host John Dickerson opened the segment by showcasing liberal rage: “A three-day federal government shutdown is over, and Senate Democrats are being blasted by left-wing groups for buckling and taunted by President Trump.”
Talking to Senator Sherrod Brown, Cordes avoided questioning the Democrat on whether the shutdown was a wise idea in the first place. Instead, she worried about its failure: “Some of your fellow progressives thought you should have held out for more.”
There was no doubt that CBS saw winners and losers. Cordes recounted, “The White House argued Democrats gained little from their hardball strategy.” Dickerson opened the program by explaining, “The government is open again after Senate Democrats backed down from a budget and immigration standoff. The president calls it a big win...”
This is a contrast from Monday night when the CBS Evening News offered a more indefinite spin, avoiding winners and losers.
Over on Good Morning America, reporter Mary Bruce fretted that Democrats got rolled with a vague promise: “This is a huge gamble for Democrats. They shut down the government over Dreamers and ultimately it's not clear if they're going to get what they want.”
In case the threat wasn't clear, she basically restated the danger: "But it’s a big risk for Democrats, who shut down the government over demands that Dreamers be protected. Now they are changing course and trusting that the Republican leader will follow through."
Reporter Cecilia Vega described the President as going on a “victory lap” and of “gloating.”
NBC’s Today downplayed the whining from the left about losing, but did note that Trump claimed a win. Peter Alexander related, “The President on Twitter also claiming a big win for Republicans here, dismissing Democrats for caving.”
A transcript of the CBS segment is below:
CBS This Morning
1/23/18
7am teaseJOHN DICKERSON: The government is open again after Senate Democrats backed down from a budget and immigration standoff. The president calls it a big win, but a clash is still looming over DACA.
...
DICKERSON: A three-day federal government shutdown is over, and Senate Democrats are being blasted by left-wing groups for buckling and taunted by President Trump. The President tweeted, "Big win for Republicans as Democrats cave on shutdown after signing a short-term spending bill."
GAYLE KING: That measure does not deal with the DACA program for nearly 700,000 undocumented immigrants. Senate Republicans promise a vote on DACA by next month. Nancy Cordes is on Capitol Hill with this story. Nancy, good morning. What a day.
NANCY CORDES: Really, and while the shutdown may be over, lawmakers bought themselves just two and a half weeks before the money is set to run out again. And while Democrats did extract that promise from the Senate's leader, they got no such guarantee from House Republicans, meaning, really, they're facing nearly as much uncertainty as before.
VOICE: The yeas are 266. The nays are 150 —
CORDES: With back-to-back votes to reopen the government —
SENATOR JONI ERNST: The motion to concur is agreed to.
CORDES: — Congress crawled out of a hole it dug itself.
SPEAKER PAUL RYAN: This is not a moment to pat ourselves on the back, not even close. We very much need to heed the lessons of what just happened here.
CORDES: What happened was a three-day partisan standoff over something almost every leader claims to want. A bill protecting young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children.
SENATOR DICK DURBIN: The issue of immigration, the issue of the Dreamers, is the civil rights issue of our time.
CORDES: The White House argued Democrats gained little from their hardball strategy.
SARAH HUCKABEE: I would say that those numbers are much more in the President's favor than in Senator Schumer's favor.
CORDES: Democrats claimed they succeeded by forcing GOP leader Mitch McConnell to commit to a vote on Dreamer legislation for the first time. Some of your fellow progressives thought you should have held out for more.
SENATOR SHERROD BROWN: I think we got a good deal.
CORDES: Connecticut's Richard Blumenthal disagreed. .
SENATOR RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: It eaves the Dreamers out in the cold, potentially vulnerable to mass deportation.
CORDES: Jose Lopez is one of those Dreamers. His parents brought him here from Mexico when he was two.
JOSE LOPEZ (Dream Team Los Angeles spokesperson): The time to act was now. I feel like they lost that chance.
CORDES: He now works as a communications director for a nonprofit in L.A.
LOPEZ: My biggest fear is that it's been 17 years, there's going to be another 17 years before we hear anything else.
CORDES: It all depends on how far four congressional leaders can get in the next 16 days, crafting a compromise that pairs Dreamer protections with more border security.
REP. STENY HOYER: I pray that neither I nor the Congress will be in this same position come February 8th.
CORDES: He may need those prayers because 16 legislative days, well, that's really six days around here because the House is taking the rest of the week off. That's a very short amount of time to tackle an issue, immigration, that has stymied Congress for decades. One bright spot in this spending bill for both sides but really for Democrats is the fact that it reinstated the Children's Health Insurance Program for another six years.
