During CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday, embattled Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Eric Swalwell (D-CA), and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) were given quite the platform to play the victim over their committee assignments. As Townhall has addressed at length, this especially includes Rep. Omar. Not only did the mainstream media provide the Democratic members a platform to vent, they also showed just how hypocritical they are when it comes to the standards that Democratic members are held to versus Republican ones. There was perhaps no stronger example of this than during host Margaret Brennan's questioning of Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) during CBS News' "Face the Nation."
In addition to talking about issues such as how he came to finally earn enough votes to become speaker as well as the debt ceiling, Brennan confronted McCarthy "about some of the makeup of your caucus," as she brought up the 2020 presidential election.
Like so many others on the left and in the mainstream media have done, Brennan lamented how McCarthy allowed Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) and Paul Gosar (R-AZ)--previously stripped of all their committee assignments by a Democratically-controlled Congress--to serve on important committees.
"You've put many of them on very key committees, Intelligence, Homeland Security, Oversight. Why are you elevating people who are denying reality like that?"
When McCarthy went to answer, pointing to Brennan how Democrats have been responsible for "elevating people" as well when it comes to committee assignments, she cut him off.
As the speaker mentioned and doubled down on, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), who actually serves as the ranking member of the Oversight Committee, as well as Rep. Bennie Thompson (D-MS), who serves as the ranking member of the Committee on Homeland Security and who chaired the select committee on January 6, have engaged in their own election denialism.
Raskin's first move as a congressman, in fact, was to object to the 2016 presidential elections. He even touted as much on his official congressional website.
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"Did you also be fair and equal and where you looked at Raskin did the same thing. Bennie Thompson, who's a ranking member and was the chair? These individuals were chair in the Democratic Party," McCarthy insisted.
As Brennan and McCarthy went back and forth about the "conference choices" to seat such members on committees, the speaker continued to stick to his guns. "So, if you want to hold Republicans to that equation, why don't you also hold Democrats? Why don't you hold Jamie Raskin? Why don't you hold Bennie Thompson, when Democrats had appointed them to be chair? I never once heard you ask Nancy Pelosi or any Democrat that question when they were in power in the majority, when they questioned..."
Brennan's response was to excuse such behavior since it took place in years past. "You're talking about things going back to 2000," she offered, adding that she didn't have control of the show then and, despite how this hardly being a proper excuse, that that "is why I'm asking you now about your leadership."
Rankin's election denialism came in 2016, though, and Thompson's in 2004. And, when it comes to the excuse that this was a long time ago, which she stuck to throughout, Brennan might as well have thrown up her hands and admitted it's different because they're Democrats.
Our friends at Twitchy highlighted how this was a particularly noteworthy part of the segment. As one user pointed out, McCarthy also left out a key Democrat, Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), who was particularly vehement in denying the 2016 results.
Missed the big one: Hakeem Jeffries has been on record as denying elections where Republicans won about 100 times. Brennan thinks she's so clever, but all she 's proving is that she biased and misinformed.
— GioCon (@GioCon13) January 30, 2023
McCarthy has had some of his fiercest moments not just when it comes to keeping his promises about keeping members who don't belong off of committees, but when it comes to confronting the media for their hypocrisy of holding Democrats and Republicans to completely different standards.
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