ABC continued to show its virulent hatred and bias toward former President Trump on Wednesday’s World News Tonight and Thursday’s Good Morning America as, along with CBS’s respective shows (CBS Evening News and CBS Mornings) and NBC’s Today, they’ve refused to tell their viewers about a poll of Teamsters rank-and-file members showing nearly 60 percent support for Donald Trump, not Vice President Harris.
Instead, the networks focused their efforts on how Teamsters leadership refused to endorse either candidate and went back to peddling more hate on Trump over Springfield, Ohio, thus rescuing Harris from a negative headline.
ABC’s chief Trump-hating correspondent Rachel Scott minimized the lack of a Teamsters endorsement, instead emphasizing Springfield:
Between bomb threats and evacuations, the city of Springfield has been on edge ever since Donald Trump amplified those false claims about Haitian migrants who live there and officials warned that a campaign stop will make things worse. Overnight, Donald Trump telling his supporters that he plans to visit Springfield, Ohio, after amplifying false claims that Haitian migrants in Springfield were eating neighborhood pets...Springfield’s mayor has warned against a visit from any candidate. The city has had least 33 bomb threats.
After cheering Harris’s latest speech attacking Trump as anti-immigrant, Scott screeched that “Trump also [made] misleading claims that he won the endorsement of one of the most powerful unions in the country, the Teamsters” when “the reality” is they’re “not...endorsing” anyone.
Scott went even hard to the mat for Harris on Wednesday’s World News Tonight (click “expand”):
SCOTT: Tonight, the powerhouse Teamsters union announcing that, for the first time in nearly 30 years, it will not endorse in the presidential race. Union president Sean O’Brien declaring, “[U]nfortunately, neither major candidate was able to make serious commitments to our union to ensure the interests of working people are always put before Big Business.” Both campaigns went all-out for the teamsters, former president Donald Trump even inviting o'brien to address the Republican national convention.
O’BRIEN [on 07/15/24]: At the end of the day, the teamsters are not interested if you have a D, R, or an I next to your name. We want to know one thing. What are you doing to help American workers?
SCOTT: But Trump also sparking anger among unions when he praised billionaire Elon Musk for threatening to fire striking workers.
TRUMP [on 08/12/24]: Well, you — you're the greatest cutter. I mean, I look at what you do. You walk in. You just say, you want to quit? They go on strike. I won't mention the name of the company, but they go on strike. And you say, that's okay, you're all gone. You're all gone. So, every one of you is gone.
SCOTT: The Teamsters president said that amounted to “economic terrorism.” Vice president Kamala Harris, who has worked the picket line with striking autoworkers and has the backing of major unions, including the AFL-CIO, met with the teamsters board on Monday to try and win their support. Today, her campaign said she stands by her promise to “look out for the teamsters rank and file no matter what.” This evening, trump calling the Teamsters decision not to endorse a win for him.
TRUMP: It was always automatic that Democrats get the teamsters, and they said, “We won't endorse the Democrats this year." So that was an honor for me.
SCOTT: But Harris tonight announcing a significant endorsement of her own. 100 Republican former national security officials now backing her, calling Trump unfit to serve. In a letter, the officials, who served under Reagan, both Presidents Bush, and Trump himself, said as commander in chief, Trump “promoted daily chaos in government, praised our enemies, and undermined our allies, politicized the military and disparaged our veterans, prioritized his personal interest above American interests, and betrayed our values, democracy, and this country's founding documents.”
The Teamsters issue was a footnote on the CBS Evening News. Congressional correspondent Nikole Killion merely shared that the Teamsters wouldn’t be “backing either presidential candidate because they weren't able to make a serious commitments to the groups.”
By Thursday’s CBS Mornings, Killion fretted Trump “heaped praise on the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, claiming he won their endorsement” even though “the union did not endorse a presidential candidate”
Thursday on Today, NBC’s Peter Alexander framed the topic as “Trump...touting a non-endorsement” and promoted Harris’s campaign claiming local Teamsters chapters have endorsed her before pivoting to cheering Harris’s speech to the Congressional Hispanic Institute and Trump’s “baseless claims about Haitian migrants”
Wednesday’s NBC Nightly News had the only mention of the poll, courtesy of correspondent Garrett Haake:
Between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, this story from @GarrettHaake on @NBCNightlyNews was the ONLY mention on the networks -- ABC, CBS, and NBC -- of the @Teamsters poll showing 58% support for Trump among rank and file members pic.twitter.com/3zFEkXWqWM
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) September 19, 2024
To see the relevant September 19 transcripts, click here (for ABC), here (for CBS), and here (for NBC).
