Conservatives wonder why J.D. Vance is wasting his time with liberals like CBS Face the Nation host Margaret Brennan. But when you watch him methodically take down every hostile question from Brennan, it's a win for him and a loss for CBS. MRC's Jorge Bonilla breaks down the battle.
Brennan is going to be the Washington presence on the new CBS Evening News. They promise she will “regularly lead coverage from Washington, D.C., when news breaks on the political and foreign affairs fronts.”
You might remember Brennan from the aftermath of Trump being shot last year. She seemed to blame Trump for his own assassination, or that he wasn’t presidential enough: “There was no call for lowering the temperature, condemning all political violence, and really trying to signal to his supporters as well not to retaliate.”
Vance chose CBS for his first TV interview since becoming Vice President. Brennan threw one hardball after another, and from the conservative viewpoint, he kept slamming the ball all over the park. It can't be a game of "gotcha" if the interviewee is never "got." But it's not for lack of trying.
Brennan asked about Pete Hegseth to the Pentagon: "If the nominee can't unite your party, how is he going to lead three million people?" She quoted National Review and The Wall Street Journal -- for their strong denunciations of Tulsi Gabbard.
She suggested they weren't doing anything about inflation: "You campaigned on lowering prices for consumers. We've seen all of these executive orders. Which one lowers prices?"
Serious snobbery broke out on the question of ending FEMA and just granting money to the states for emergencies. Brennan asked whether the "lower-income states, the Mississippis, the Kentuckys, the Alabamas, [would] be able to do this for themselves without federal help?"
Brennan challenged the Catholic vice president with the American church leaders: "The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops this week condemned some of the executive orders signed by President Trump, specifically those allowing Immigration and Customs Enforcement to enter churches and to enter schools. Do you personally support the idea of conducting a raid or enforcement action in a church service, at a school?" Vance emphatically did, noting no other law-enforcement agency is barred from entering those buildings.
On ABC's This Week, host Martha Raddatz peppered Trump border czar Tom Homan with similar questions:
The administration said it will no longer tell ICE agents they have to avoid sensitive locations including schools, hospitals, churches. Benjamin Huffman, the acting Homeland Security Secretary, said in a statement: “criminals will no longer be able to hide in America's schools and churches to avoid arrest.” What criminals are hiding in schools? Middle schools? Elementary schools? You gonna go into those?
Homan shot back: "How many MS-13 members are aged 14 to 17? Many of them." But our news networks don't want to report on gangsters from MS-13 or Tren de Aragua. That subject matter's too pro-Trump.
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