National Public Radio sounds like DNC Radio. In January, NPR Morning Edition host Steve Inskeep helpfully interviewed new House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and the network promoted his boast “We are not going to pay a ransom note to extremists in the other party."
Five months later, now that the parties agreed on the debt ceiling -- "ransom note" paid? -- All Things Considered host Juana Summers interviewed Jeffries again for eight minutes on Wednesday, and it was a festival of talk about “extreme MAGA Republicans.” Summers began: “The deal was brokered by the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, who presides over a narrow House majority including a significant vocal group of hardline conservatives.”
Inside the blue bubble of NPR, there’s no such thing as hardline leftists. Summers could only ask Jeffries “whether Democrats had given away too much,” and added “There are a number of progressive Democrats who have made the point that they were dissatisfied with some parts of this deal.”
Jeffries uncorked the “extreme” label on Republicans five times, with zero pushback from NPR. MRC's Bill D'Agostino put the audio clips together:
"It was incredibly important that we avoid this dangerous default, even though there were many extreme MAGA Republicans who were determined to bring that about...
[T]here was a willingness by some extreme right wing folks on the other side of the aisle to actually default on our debt, crash the economy and trigger a job-killing recession in order to extract maximum pain on the economy...
It's extraordinary when you think about the fact that extreme MAGA Republicans were determined to reduce the number of people who had access to nutritional benefit programs in the United States.
Either the House will be unable to function at all because the extreme MAGA Republican wing of the House Republican Conference is determined to bring about a "my way or the highway" situation...
If extreme MAGA Republicans think that they can extract concessions that are inconsistent with what the American people want, they are badly mistaken.
At the end, Summers asked for a Pelosi celebration: "Your predecessor, Nancy Pelosi, was known for her political acumen, her ability to count votes well. I'm curious, how would you characterize your style in this role compared to her style in this role?" Jeffries called Pelosi an "iconic, legendary leader" and he didn't want to compare himself to that.
Summers asked again: "How would you characterize your style in this role versus her style? I mean, it is an interesting dynamic having your predecessor still as a member of the House while you are now in this new job." Jeffries then bizarrely went for the NBA analogy: "I'll leave it to others to characterize my style other than to say that it's very difficult to follow Michael Jordan, and I'm following Michael Jordan."
PS: Jeffries also drew the softball treatment (no Biden scandal questions) on PBS NewsHour.
And House Minority Whip Katherine Clark just drew a similar softball interview from NPR where she was allowed to whack away at the House GOP.
