NBC’s Meet the Depressed pulled off an interesting feat today, wrapping a justification of the murder of the CEO of United HealthCare into an attempted cleanup of the previous justification that ran on NBC air time.
Watch as host Kristen Welker sets Senator Bernie Sanders up for a double “but”:
NBC MEET THE PRESS
12/15/24
10:23 AM
KRISTEN WELKER: And I want to ask you about one of the issues that you said- that you care deeply about. You obviously chair the Senate Health Committee. I want to get your reaction to the horrific shooting of the UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson, your colleague Elizabeth Warren said this:
ELIZABETH WARREN: Violence is never the answer, this guy gets a trial, who allegedly killed the CEO of UnitedHealth, but you can only push people so far and then they start to take matters into their own hands.
WELKER: Senator Warren quickly clarified, she said: “Violence is never the answer. Period. I should have been much clearer that there is never a justification for murder.” My big-picture question for you, though, Senator: is this the right time in the wake of this horrific murder to be talking about health care policy?
BERNIE SANDERS: Look, Elizabeth- I- Elizabeth Warren obviously understands killing and murder and shooting somebody in the back is totally unacceptable. But what I think has happened in the last few months is that what you have seen rising up is people's anger at a health insurance industry which denies people the health care that they desperately need while they make billions and billions of dollars in profit. So killing anybody, shooting somebody in the back who is a father of two is outrageous and unacceptable. Nobody, nobody should applaud it. I know Senator Warren did not. But I think what we need to ask ourselves, when we talk about healthcare, is why we are the only major country on Earth not to guarantee health care to all people, why we have a life expectancy which is significantly lower than in other countries, why working-class people die five to ten years shorter than the people on top. So Chris and I feel very strongly about this, and I think the time is long overdue for us to guarantee healthcare to every man, woman and child especially at a time when we are spending twice as much per capita on health care as the people of every other nation. Goal of health here is not to make drug companies and insurance companies phenomenally rich. It’s to guarantee quality care to all of our people.
Not once, but twice did Bernie Sanders offer some version of “murder is bad, BUT”. Not once did Welker interrupt or fact-check Sanders. In fact, she moved on to her next question, which was on minimum wage.
There was no repudiation from Welker with regard to Warren or Sanders’s statements. The Bernie interview was tonally opposite from Welker’s interview with President-Elect Donald Trump, some might say (D)ifferent, which featured constant interruptions and attempted fact-checks.
This interview lines up with the rest of the media’s coverage of the UnitedHealthcare shooting, and its disturbing normalization of murder in furtherance of goals that align with the left.
Exit question: have you noticed the lack of calls for gun control in light of this high-profile shooting?
The murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was the first time I can remember where a shooting wasn't immediately followed by a demand for gun control.
— Justine Bateman (@JustineBateman) December 15, 2024
Selective Activism.
