As the old saying goes, ‘never let the facts stand in the way of a good story.’ The Big Three networks (ABC, CBS, and NBC) did just that Monday night when they pounced on claims made on social media that President Donald Trump and his national security team discussed details of the North Korean missile test in public. They gleefully read the Facebook posts of a man who was in the dining room with Trump and who claimed they were discussing the launch, even though Jeff Pegues admitted on CBS Evening News “It's not known what they were discussing…”
On World News Tonight, the highly superficial ABC was so eager to push the unsubstantiated claims that they didn’t seem to care that they got a key detail wrong in their report. “The North Korean missile launch happened while Trump was dining with the prime minister of Japan at his Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, on Saturday night,” reported Jon Karl.
But according to NBC, the dinner “started just after eight, soon after news broke about the North Korean missile launch.” CBS noted that the White House said Trump was briefed before he and the prime minister sat down to eat.
Karl excitedly read the Facebook posts of a member of Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort as if he were reporting breaking news coming in over the wires:
“The president receiving the news about the missile incident.” And this, “Holy moly! It was fascinating to watch the flurry of activity at dinner when the news came that North Korea had launched a missile in the direction of Japan. Wow,” he wrote, “the center of the action!” The club member even posed with the military aide he claimed carries the so-called “nuclear football,” writing, quote, “This is Rick. He carries the football. The nuclear football. A briefcase, the contents of which are said to be used by the president of the United States to authorize a nuclear attack. Rick is the man.”
Only at the very end of his report did Karl mention that the administration says Trump was brief elsewhere. CBS and NBC also treated the White House’s defense as an afterthought, yet highlighted outrage from Democrats and dissenters.
On CBS, Pegues leaned on Adam Schiff, the head of the Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee, to come down hard on the president. “They should have gone to a secure space, been able to talk freely about it, been able to strategize about what the U.S. response would be. None of that happened here,” Schiff argued.
Kristen Welker did mention, on NBC Nightly News, that the White House told them that the photos show staff planning “the logistics of an impromptu news conference they held later that night.” But quickly had one of the network’s national security analysts slam the administration for being inexperienced. “When they haven't had to field too many national security cries crises. They take shortcuts. And they do things that in some ways could potentially compromise national security,” Jeremy Bash chided.
Both ABC and NBC touted a tweet from House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi scolding Trump, saying, “There's no excuse for letting an international crisis play out in front of a bunch of country club members like dinner theater.”
Their reliance on boasting claims of a man that wasn’t at Trump’s table, but across the room, shows how desperate the liberal media are to find a scandal. This level of biased reporting is just plain embarrassing and ridiculous.