After turning a blind eye to the roll-out of the Justice Act from Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), the only black conservative in the chamber, and refusing to report on the death threats and racial slurs being left on his office voicemail, the broadcast networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) made it full circle Wednesday evening when they completely ignored how Senate Democrats sank the police reform legislation. And they were still uninterested in casting a critical lens at Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who claimed the GOP had killed George Floyd.
Luckily, Fox News Channel’s Special Report wasn’t trying to hide the truth from their viewers. Chief White House correspondent John Roberts had the first mention of what happened on the Senate floor earlier in the day with President Trump's reaction:
JOHN ROBERTS: At a Rose Garden news conference, President Trump also weighing in on the Democrats move to stop South Carolina Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill, the Justice Act from moving forward.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Democrats don't want to do it because they want to weaken our police. They want to take away immunity.
Anchor Bret Baier addressed the death of the bill during the panel discussion with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan and Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel. “The other big event today is the Republican police reform bill going down in flames to a Democrat filibuster,” he said, teeing up this fiery soundbite of Scott tearing into Senate Democrats:
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): How does that work around the country when instead of getting 70 percent of what you wanted, today and tomorrow and next week you get zero. And you're going to wait until the election to get more. Okay. Well, why wouldn't you take the 80 percent now, see if you can win the election and add on the other 20 percent. You've got to be kidding me.
“If you didn’t watch that speech, it was quite something on the Senate Floor,” Baier added.
Strassel went on to call out the political motives of Democrats. “Well, the question for Democrats today was: did they want to victory on this and a solution or did they want an issue? And it seems pretty clear they wanted the issue for the election,” she said.
Baier also brought attention to how “the House Speaker saying Republicans are responsible for George Floyd's murder. Really didn't get covered today.”
At first, Swan seemed as though he was left speechless by Pelosi’s insane comment. “A remarkable comment and even more remarkable that she declined to apologize for it,” he said. Swan was also convinced that between the comment and the death of the bill, that passing police reform was “really does look like this effort is dead before the election.”
The networks’ silence on these issues was sponsored by GlaxoSmithKline on ABC, Acura on CBS, and WeatherTech on NBC. Their contact information is linked.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
Fox News Channel’s Special Report
June 24, 2020
6:04:28 p.m. Eastern(…)
JOHN ROBERTS: At a Rose Garden news conference, President Trump also weighing in on the Democrats move to stop South Carolina Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill, the Justice Act from moving forward.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: The Democrats don't want to do it because they want to weaken our police. They want to take away immunity.
(…)
6:53:16 p.m. Eastern
BRET BAIER: The other big event today is the Republican police reform bill going down in flames to a Democrat filibuster. Here is House Speaker Pelosi and Tim Scott, senator from South Carolina.
SPEAKER NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): For something to happen, they're going to have to face the realities of police brutality … but so far they were trying to get away with murder, actually. The murder of George Floyd.
SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): How does that work around the country when instead of getting 70 percent of what you wanted, today and tomorrow and next week you get zero. And you're going to wait until the election to get more. Okay. Well, why wouldn't you take the 80 percent now, see if you can win the election and add on the other 20 percent. You've got to be kidding me.
BAIER: If you didn’t watch that speech, it was quite something on the Senate Floor. But Jonathon the House Speaker saying Republicans are responsible for George Floyd's murder. Really didn't get covered today.
JONATHAN SWAN: A remarkable comment and even more remarkable that she declined to apologize for it. It really does look like this effort is dead before the election. I think that the only thing that brings it back is if there is overwhelming pressure from protests and other mechanisms. But it looks pretty dead to me.
BAIER: Yeah. Kimberley, quickly?
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: Well, the question for Democrats today was: did they want to victory on this and a solution or did they want an issue? And it seems pretty clear they wanted the issue for the election.
