On Wednesday morning, all three broadcast network newscasts conceded that progressive darling, Soros-backed San Francisco prosecutor, and son of terrorists Chesa Boudin (D) was recalled by voters Tuesday night in the far-left city amid rising crime and growing decay in the Golden City.
“Sending a message. Voters in San Francisco oust the city's progressive district attorney, under fire for rising crime...Straight ahead, what it means for Democrats in key races nationwide,” said NBC’s Today co-host Savannah Guthrie in a tease.
NBC had the most time spent on Boudin with two minutes and 58 seconds on Today and then one minute and 58 seconds on NBC Nightly News with both coming from correspondent Jacob Ward.
On Today, Ward boasted that “San Francisco pioneered all sorts of cutting edge criminal justice reforms under its progressive prosecutor Chsea Boudin, but now after an expensive recall campaign and rising crime rates here and across the country, he's been tossed out of his job and the nation is watching.”
Noting that many of the “same voters” that backed him tossed him out, Ward explained that while “Boudin won off his promise to fight inequality in the justice system with alternatives to prison,” it failed due to voters seeing their “city in decline” since “[h]omelessness and drug addiction rampant and crime is up” and “[h]omicides and assaults are up 11 percent this year.”
Ward further explained that the outrage came as the “wave of recent hate crimes and auto thefts touched every neighborhood.”
He also provided this astute take from The Washington Post’s Scott Wilson that he himself would later note is something progressives will grapple with nationwide: “Lot of progressives are so wed to what they believe in, [SCREEN WIPE] that they won't listen to what actual people are telling them.”
Ward let Boudin say his piece in the form of a soundbite falsely calling his loss due to “right-wing billionaires outspen[ding]” him.
On ABC’s Good Morning America, correspondent Eva Pilgrim reported that “[v]oters in” the “decidedly progressive city...oust[ed]” Boudin as “critics say he was soft on crime as he made attempts to ease sentences and reduce incarcerations” and “really came under fire as crime rates rised [sic] in San Francisco post-pandemic.”
Pilgrim framed it as a time for Democrats to lick their wounds: “
[T]his decision sending a major message to Democrats ahead of the midterms and raising some big questions for progressives about how to deal with crime and make voters feel safe and confident that Democrats can deliver if they're elected, George.
And on CBS Mornings, White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe covered a slew of California results, including Boudin’s, saying that he lost his post due to “high-profile examples of crime like smash and grab robberies and anti-Asian attacks.”
O’Keefe closed his report (38 seconds of which was on Boudin) by having Democrats keep their chins up:
Remember, most Democrats across the country don't embrace the defund the police movement or those more bold — bolder police reforms. Boudin did and residents at least in one Democratic city said they don't like it.
The networks trying to help their side regroup was made possible thanks to advertisers such as Apple TV+, Dicks’s Sporting Goods, and Progressive. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcripts, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), here (for NBC’s Today), and here (for NBC Nightly News).
