The third likely underwhelming installment of the Donald Trump-less 2024 Republican presidential primary debates is being held in Miami on Nov. 8. Once again, media bias will be at the forefront in the form of the NBC moderators chosen for the affair.
In a move that will almost certainly be seen as an insult by the grassroots voting base of the party she helms, Republican National Committee (RNC) chairwoman Ronna McDaniel has selected NBC News anchors Lester Holt and Kristen Welker to preside over the debate, along with token “conservative” Hugh Hewitt. The decision underscores again just how much DC Republican careerists fail to understand the anger boiling over among GOP voters who reside outside the Potomac bubble.
This could prove the RNC’s fatal error. When anti-establishment GOP voters are forced to endure Holt and Welker lobbing anti-Trump questions to the likes of Chris Christie and Nikki Haley, they don’t see it as liberal partisanship in action, as they may have in pre-2016 America. Instead, they view it as an out-of-touch ruling political elite on display. It’s Club Uniparty, and that blows up in McDaniel and Co.’s faces much more than some CNN anchor espousing progressive talking points all evening.
NBC -- Official Partner of Anti-Trump Organizations
Donald Trump (Photo by Mark Makela/Getty Images)
Like most of the big-box media, NBC News has long blurred the lines between reporting and advocacy. Since Trump entered the White House in January 2017, those guardrails have been obliterated. NBC is not neutral. It is an active part of an establishment bloc that openly works against the leading Republican candidate for president.
The Aspen Institute is one of the many globalist “think tanks” that has relentlessly attacked Trump since 2015. Casting all notions of media “ethics” aside, NBC News openly partners with the organization in supporting and participating in its pro-globalist events. A release touting the 2022 Aspen Security Forum contained this curious bit of information: “Anchors and correspondents from NBC News, the exclusive media partner of the 2022 Aspen Security Forum, will participate throughout the program.”
The relationship continued in 2023. Both Miami moderators are involved. Welker conducted a session of the institute’s Aspen Ideas Festival that featured a sitdown with Chelsea Clinton on “The Fight for Reproductive Health.” Holt, meanwhile, got together with Never Trump zealot Liz Cheney as part of “An Afternoon of Conversation.” The Aspen audience howled in delight as Holt tossed his first question at Cheney. You’ll never guess what it was. “If I can get your thoughts on the indictment of Donald Trump in the documents case … Give me your assessment.”
It went on like that, for another 25 interminable minutes.
Ashli Babbitt, George Soros and Democrat Ties
Holt gained special notoriety in August 2021 when he conducted NBC’s nationally televised interview of US Capitol Police Lt. Michael Byrd, who shot and killed unarmed Trump supporter Ashli Babbitt on Jan. 6. “She was posing a threat to the United States House of Representatives,” Byrd explained to an empathetic Holt. Shockingly, Byrd was allowed without pushback from Holt to defend shooting an American citizen who did not pose an immediate danger:
“Holt: The fact that you weren’t aware whether she was armed or not, did that alter the decision-making?
“Byrd: It did not.”
Did you know NBC funds a progressive establishment DC think tank founded by top Hillary Clinton aide John Podesta? The Center for American Progress (CAP) also is financially backed by globalist billionaire George Soros and a slew of major corporations. Comcast NBCUniversal, parent company of NBC News, is listed right alongside them as CAP donors.
Another Soros-backed partisan outfit, the Brennan Center for Justice, has had a curious working relationship with the Peacock network. The “legal issues”-based center has relentlessly led the cheers for the ongoing lawfare campaign against Trump. A sample from August on a Trump indictment tells all:
“Something larger than Trump will be on trial – the Big Lie of a ‘stolen’ election. Trump didn’t act alone. A web of pundits, elected officials, and media outlets propelled misinformation and baseless conspiracy theories. They stoked distrust in our electoral system, instigating an insurrection.”
Kimberley D. Harris, executive vice president of Comcast Corporation and general counsel of NBCUniversal, is a member of the center’s board of directors. “[A]s General Counsel of NBCUniversal, Harris provides legal advice to senior management team and oversees the legal function across all NBCUniversal divisions,” her official Comcast bio states. “She reports to Comcast Chairman and CEO Brian Roberts and NBCUniversal CEO Steve Burke ... She serves on the Board of Directors for the Goldman Sachs Group, Inc.” Harris is an alumna of the Obama administration. She served as “principal Deputy Counsel and Deputy Assistant to the President in 2011,” the bio details.
To paraphrase George Carlin, It’s a big club, and NBC is most definitely in it.
NBC News cited the Brennan center as a respected source in its “fact check” of a 2020 debate between Trump and Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden moderated by Welker. This is the orbit in which NBC News resides. Many Republican grassroots supporters fully grasp this and find it a political turn-off. The Republican National Committee appears oblivious to the reaction because all this cozy elitism is perfectly normal within its Potomac confines.
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