On Sunday’s This Week, anchor George Stephanopoulos led the show with an exclusive interview with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). While the interview featured a wide range of topics from the seemingly imminent Russian invasion of Ukraine to the rampant inflation that’s dragging hitting consumers wallets, to the looming midterm elections, one topic that conveniently never came up was Pelosi’s reluctance to back a ban on stock trading for members of Congress.
Continuing on his network’s refusal to cover Pelosi’s hesitance to support the Congressional stock trading ban, Stephanopoulos decided to focus on other topics. The first was the ongoing debate in Washington over how close Russian President Vladimir Putin is to invading Ukraine. He asked Pelosi: “the White House is warning of an imminent invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians seem to think that’s all hype. Do you believe that Putin is poised to invade?”
Apparently, failing to understand that the President is the commander in chief, Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi if “Congress [is] doing everything you can to prevent an invasion?” Most laughably he asked her what “should President Putin know from you, the Speaker of the House, about the consequences of invasion?”
Moving onto domestic issues, Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi about the continuing spike in inflation and how the average American family is paying “about $275” more a month, he inquired “what can Congress do right now to bring those costs down?”
Pelosi replied that somehow spending trillions of dollars on “Build Back Better” would bring down inflation and “reduce the national debt by $100 billion in the first 10 years and a trillion dollars in the second 10 years.” Predictably, there was no pushback from Stephanopoulos on that ludicrous claim.
Turning to another issue, Pelosi was then asked about rising crime in America:
The other thing weighing on people now is rising crime. And there appear to be some divisions among Democrats about how to handle it. Your colleague Karen Bass running for mayor of Los Angeles trying to increase the police force in L.A. Cori Bush Congresswoman from Missouri is saying it’s time to defund the police. She’s sticking by that. You're the Speaker, how do you think Democrats should address rising crime?
Finally, Stephanopoulos asked Pelosi the following: “Inflation and rising crime are both weighing down on President Biden's approval ratings right now. They’re weighing down on Democrats as you head into the midterms. You said you're going to run again this year but 29 of your fellow Democrats are not running for re-election. How worried are you about the midterms right now?”
As you can see, there were no questions about Pelosi’s belligerence over supporting a ban on congressional stock trading. Perhaps Stephanopoulos was worried she would try to argue it was an issue of the free market and Jake Tapper would call her out again on CNN.
This latest example of bias by omission was made possible by CarMax. Their information is linked.
To read the relevant transcript click expand:
ABC’s This Week
2/13/2022
9:04:58 AMGEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: We just saw those reports right there. The White House is warning of an imminent invasion of Ukraine. The Ukrainians seem to think that’s all hype. Do you believe that Putin is poised to invade?
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Are you convinced that President Biden is doing everything he can to prevent an invasion? Is Congress doing everything you can to prevent an invasion?
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: What should President Putin know from you, the Speaker of the House, about the consequences of invasion?
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's talk about the situation here at home. Families are feeling the hit from the highest inflation in forty years. Right now it’s costing the average American family about $275 a month. What can Congress do right now to bring those costs down?
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Wages are not keeping up with prices.
PELOSI: That's right. And let me just say about what congress has been doing. When we did The COMPETES Act last, what contributes to inflation? More people having jobs, scarcity of products, which makes the prices go up, and the rest. So when we passed The COMPETES Act last Friday. This was a giant step forward. Now we have to go to conference with the Senate and we will shortly.
We'll send it to the President's desk. But what that does it addresses the supply chain shortages that we have, and therefore, we'll decrease inflation. Secondly, it's important to note this about the BBB, the BBB is a deficit reduction bill. It's a bill that some people say when you increase the national debt, you increase inflation. 17 Nobel Laureates wrote that the way the BBB was written with long-term investments and increasing the capacity of people to participate in our success is non-inflationary. In addition to that, the tax -- the joint tax committee, which is imprimatur on all these issues, the joint tax committee says that BBB will reduce the national debt by $100 billion in the first 10 years. And a trillion dollars in the second 10 years.
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: But as you know, Senator Manchin, who is the Senator that matters now, because he's against it disagrees. He said it’s gonna hurt inflation. Let's take a look.
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: The other thing weighing on people now is rising crime. And there appear to be some divisions among Democrats about how to handle it. Your colleague Karen Bass running for mayor of Los Angeles trying to increase the police force in L.A. Cori Bush Congresswoman from Missouri is saying it’s time to defund the police. She’s sticking by that. You're the speaker, how do you think Democrats should address rising crime?
(...)
STEPHANOPOULOS: Inflation and rising crime are both weighing down on President Biden's approval ratings right now. They’re weighing down on Democrats as you head into the midterms. You said you're going to run again this year but 29 of your fellow Democrats are not running for re-election. How worried are you about the midterms right now?
