Along with joining their fellow broadcast networks in rushing to the defense of illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia despite records showing his less-than-stellar conduct, CBS used its flagship newscasts on Tuesday and Wednesday to bemoan the plight of Columbia University student Mohsen Mahdawi, who helped lead the pro-Hamas protest movement on campus, which resulted in police needing riot gear to break up the hooliganism.
Correspondent Lila Luciano’s fawning coverage — which tallied 10 minutes and 38 seconds on the Tuesday and Wednesday CBS Evening News and Wednesday’s CBS Mornings — never once mentioned Mahdawi’s support for Hamas and Al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigade, a group designated by the U.S. as a terrorist organization.
If you were to add in a brief from Tuesday’s CBS Evening News Plus and full story on Wednesday’s CBS Mornings Plus, the tally would balloon to 16 minutes and 49 seconds.
Along with saying he could “emphasize” with Hamas vis-à-vis on October 7, our friends at the Free Beacon detailed his rampant hatred toward Israel and Jews, which flew in the face of his claims to CBS (click “expand”):
“Hamas is a product of the Israeli occupation,” he told a New England newspaper two weeks after the terror attack. Mahdawi, according to the newspaper, also helped pen an Oct. 14, 2023, statement issued by anti-Israel groups at Columbia that said the “Palestinian struggle for freedom is rooted in international law, under which occupied peoples have the right to resist the occupation of their land.”
“If every political avenue available to Palestinians is blocked, we should not be surprised when resistance and violence breaks out,” the statement read.
Later in December, during a 60 Minutes interview, Mahdawi said he empathizes with Hamas and argued that the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 attack, which killed nearly 1,200 Israelis, should not be looked at in a vacuum.
“I did not say that I justify what Hamas has done. I said I can empathize. To empathize is to understand the root cause and to not look at any event or situation in a vacuum. This is for me that path moving forward,” he said.
In August, Mahdawi posted pictures to his Instagram account honoring the “martyrdom” of his “cousin,” Maysara Masharqa, who served as a prominent field commander in the military wing of the Al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade. Mahdawi praised Masharqa as a “fierce resistance fighter” who had been fighting since he was 17, adding that he spent seven years in an Israeli prison.
“Here is Mesra who offers his soul as a sacrifice for the homeland and for the blood of the martyrs as a gift for the victory of Gaza and in defense of the dignity of his homeland and his people against the vicious Israeli occupation in the West Bank,” Mahdawi wrote in the post.
Months earlier, at a Jan. 24, 2024, campus protest, Mahdawi told a crowd of students that “there’s nothing, nothing more honorable than dying for a noble cause.”
Tuesday’s CBS Evening News used the plight of illegal immigrant Kilmar Abrego Garcia as a bridge to Mahdawi. Co-anchor John Dickerson fretted “Mahdawi is here legally, but the administration wants to deport him, claiming he could undermine the Mideast peace process.”
Luciano began with more complaining:
Look, we were wondering, how is it that, among the thousands of student protesters in college campuses around the country, the federal government landed on a few who they’re targeting for deportation? Well, our monthlong reporting took us to an activist group that then led us to this one man who is today in federal custody fighting against his deportation. This is Mohsen Mahdawi. He was one of the students leading pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University. Mahdawi is Palestinian. He’s also a permanent U.S. resident.
She began with soundbites of Mahdawi being heralded in 2023 by 60 Minutes, which she said was used by “the U.S. branch of Betar, a group that claims it has sent the names of thousands of protesters to the Trump administration, urging they be deported.” She scoffed at Betar’s credibility, saying the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) “calls it an extremist group.”
The interview clips were wallowing in his situation with Mahdawi insisting his “compassion extend[s] beyond the Palestinian people” to “also...Jewish people and for the Israelis as well” (click “expand”):
LUCIANO: We’re on our way to meet up with Mohsen, who has been in hiding for weeks. And he fears that the administration is coming after him next. We met Mahdawi in Vermont on Sunday. [TO MAHDAWI] Nice to finally meet you.
MAHDAWI: Pleasure to meet you.
LUCIANO: How you doing?
MAHDAWI: Some people actually found where I was. They slipped a paper underneath my door saying: “We are watching you.”
LUCIANO: While sheltering in place and before fleeing to Vermont, Mahdawi got a notice for a long-awaited appointment to become a U.S. citizen. [TO MAHDAWI] When you got the appointment, what were your thoughts?
MAHDAWI: Mixed feelings, right? It’s the first feeling of, like, I have been waiting for this for more than a year. And the other feeling is like, wait a minute. Is this a honey trap?
LUCIANO: You think they could be calling you in to detain you?
MAHDAWI: Correct.
LUCIANO: What do you want people to hear from you in the case that you are detained?
MAHDAWI: I want people to know that my compassion extended beyond the Palestinian people. My compassion is also for the Jewish people and for the Israelis as well.
(....)
MAHDAWI: It is — it’s an irony, the irony of the destiny. And I accept the outcome. If my story will become another story for the struggle to have justice and democracy in this country, let it be.
Sure enough, Luciano and her CBS crew were there outside an office building when Immigration Customs and Enforcement (ICE) scooped him up in what he portrayed as a trap masquerading as an interview.
Back live, she said Mahdawi was “in custody in Vermont, in federal custody” and “[h]is attorneys are fighting not just the legality of his detention, given that he has not committed any crimes” and hope they’ll win “an injunction to not just keep him in Vermont, at least to stop the deportation, but also to try and bail him out.”
“[E]xtraordinary reporting,” Dickerson replied.
Wednesday’s CBS Mornings was nearly identical in the taped report, but gave a chance for another liveshot and new set of co-hosts to react.
Co-host Gayle King framed this was another step in “the Trump administration’s crackdown on college campus protesters” and Mahdawi “was among the students who led protests at Columbia University against the war in Gaza” and accused by the U.S. of “undermin[ing]...foreign policy.”
Following Luciano’s report, King said to her his arrest was “so unsettling” because “he has in this country legally” and “a lot of people we know have that,” thus showing no one who isn’t a citizen is truly “safe.”
Of course, King didn’t provide the caveat that foreigners have nothing to worry about so long as their papers are in order and, of course, you’re not a terrorist sympathizer.
King and co-host Nate Burleson continued to throw a pity party (click “expand”):
LUCIANO: And not just that, Gayle, the fact that he was sent an e- mail for that application — not for that application, for that appointment for his citizenship, he was ready. He told me, he said he was at a fork on the road, either he’s gets closer to becoming a citizen with more or full rights, or he’s detained, and he said he was ready to take that exam, the hundred questions.
KING: Right.
LUCIANO: So you know, he’s told you’re coming in for this and we were told when the interview began — the interview began, so it sounded like, okay, this is going according to plan.
BURLESON: So, his intuition about it being a honey trap —
LUCIANO: Absolutely.
BURLESON: — was correct.
LUCIANO: Absolutely. And that’s very concerning for everybody, if the government is telling you, you’re coming in for one thing, and by the way, he’s not charged with any crimes, he’s not charged with anything.
KING: That’s what I’m trying to figure out. What is he — what are the charges against him?
LUCIANO: Just like Khalil, it is up to the State Department, the Secretary of State, to determine if your presence in the country goes against our foreign policy, without any specifics. It’s a story to keep an eye on.
BURLESON: It is concerning. Most people will receive an e-mail about their citizenship.
KING: That they’ve been waiting for, Nate.
BURLESON: You say, okay.
LUCIANO: And you cannot show up, that’s part of the process, and that’s what he told me. He said, look, I asked him, you know the stakes, why are you showing up? But he said, well, because that’s part of the process, and I still have hope that if I am a citizen, I can continue speaking on what matters.
KING: So now he’s detained where and for how long?
LUCIANO: He is in Vermont. The temporary restraining order, his attorneys tell me they’re trying to turn it into a preliminary injunction to keep him in Vermont, and they’re trying to get him out on bail as well.
On CBS Mornings Plus, she lamented that Mahdawi “became the target of online threats” because of his 2023 interview and there’s “concern” more could similarly be taken.
“There’s a lot of people who say, look, I don’t agree with the protests. I don’t agree with what they had to say at all, but there is a concern that without criminal charges, just, you know, saying this person is inconvenient for the country is concerning,” she said.
Dickerson tucked Madhawi into a news brief on Wednesday’s CBS Evening News: “Last night, we told you about Mohsen Mahdawi, a green card holder who as arrested in Vermont after taking part in protests at Columbia University. Dozens of House Democrat sent a letter to members of the administration today demanding to know why he’s being held.”
To see the relevant CBS transcripts from April 16, click here (for the CBS Evening News) and here (for CBS Evening News Plus). To see the relevant CBS transcripts from April 17, click here (for CBS Mornings), here (for CBS Mornings Plus), and here (for the CBS Evening News).
