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NPR Hard at Work Normalizing Trump's Far-Right Cabinet Picks
When John Bolton is the most aggressive critic of the incoming administration, you know we have a problem.
Nov 23, 2024
Donald Trump hasn’t taken office yet, but he has wasted no time naming cabinet members and other nominations for his incoming administration. They must be confirmed by the Senate—unless Trump manages an unprecedented end run around the Senate’s power to advise and consent—which means the media play an important role in helping bring to light their records and qualifications.
Clearly Trump is trying to see how far he can push the limits of the country’s democratic institutions with these nominations, which include an anti-vaxxer to oversee the country’s public health infrastructure, and a congressmember investigated for sex trafficking to be attorney general. A look at NPR‘s coverage so far suggests that the public radio network has no interest in using the power of the so-far-still-free press to preserve those limits.
In its reporting on Trump’s picks over the seven days from November 13 through November 19, NPR‘s Morning Edition has featured eight guest sources offering commentary, in the form of either soundbites or lengthier interviews, according to a FAIR search of the Nexis news database. All but two were current or former Republican officials, including one current Trump adviser. The other two were a representative from the right-wing Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank, and a political risk consultant (who offered a perfectly neutral assessment). All of them were white men.
As a result, the most forceful denunciations of Trump’s parade of shockingly unqualified nominees that Morning Edition listeners were permitted came from one of the most right-wing members of the George W. Bush administration, John Bolton (11/14/24). And the show made sure to explicitly balance his interview by also giving one a few days later to Trump adviser Marc Lotter (11/18/24).
The dearth of nonpartisan experts and utter absence of any progressive or even mildly liberal voices also meant that only Trump’s most outrageous picks thus far—Matt Gaetz (who has since withdrawn), Pete Hegseth, Tulsi Gabbard, Robert F. Kennedy Jr.—were subject to “expert” criticism on the show. Meanwhile, most of his other picks weren’t even mentioned, let alone scrutinized.
One guest, a former George W. Bush official, made the only mention of Mike Huckabee, Elise Stefanik and Mike Waltz as picks, calling them “leaders who have to be taken seriously” (11/13/24). But in a sane democracy, the media would be taking a close look at these candidates, too, who have more polished resumes but similar levels of extremism: Huckabee, picked as ambassador to Israel, has argued repeatedly that the West Bank is Israeli territory, and that “there’s no such thing as a Palestinian.” Waltz, for national security advisor, wants Israel to bomb Iranian nuclear sites. Stefanik, tapped to be UN ambassador, led the congressional witch hunt against college presidents last spring.
‘Look at the positives here’
It wasn’t just Morning Edition sanewashing Trump’s picks at NPR. In a piece (NPR.org, 11/15/24) about Trump’s selection of RFK Jr. to head the Department of Health and Human Services, NPR‘s headline and opening framed the anti-science conspiracy theorist as just a guy who “Wants to ‘Make America Healthy Again,'” but who “Could Face a Lot of Pushback.”
It took seven paragraphs for reporters Will Stone and Allison Aubrey to mention that scientists are “deeply worried about Kennedy’s history of questioning scientific consensus on vaccines and his antagonism to mainstream medicine more broadly.”
After quoting one public health expert who expressed strong fears about the serious damage Kennedy could do to the country’s public health system, NPR cheerfully offered the other side of things:
And yet there’s no denying there are areas of substantial overlap between the goals of MAHA and scientists who have long advocated for tackling the root causes of chronic illness.
The reporters did point out the contradictions between Kennedy’s regulatory goals, which would take on “big food and big pharma,” and the GOP/Trump war on government regulation of big corporations. But they gave the last word to Kennedy adviser Calley Means to argue, without rebuttal:
“I would tell anyone skeptical about this, to look at the positives here,” he says. “This MAHA agenda is one of the golden areas for true bipartisan reform.”
He says Kennedy’s approach will be to insist on what he terms “accurate science.”
In total, the piece gave more time to Kennedy allies with products to sell than to actual public health experts.
‘Expressed doubts’—or lied?
In a piece on Trump’s nominee for energy secretary, oil executive Chris Wright, NPR (11/16/24) offered a textbook example of sanewashing that ought to have jarred any editor:
Wright has also expressed doubts about whether climate change is driving extreme weather events.
“There is no climate crisis, and we’re not in the midst of an energy transition either,” Wright said in a video uploaded to LinkedIn.
“We have seen no increase in the frequency or intensity of hurricanes, tornadoes, droughts or floods despite endless fearmongering of the media, politicians and activists,” he also said in the video. “The only thing resembling a crisis with respect to climate change is the regressive, opportunity-squelching policies justified in the name of climate change.”
Those quotes do not illustrate “doubts about whether climate change is driving extreme weather events,” they illustrate anti-science climate denialism in the form of flat-out lies.
‘Backstop’ in action?
As we reported last month (FAIR.org, 10/24/24), NPR recently installed a “Backstop” editorial team to review all content prior to airing or publishing, after the latest round of right-wing complaints of bias. When the Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced it would be funding that team, it explained the purpose was to help NPR achieve the “highest standards of editorial integrity,” including “accuracy, fairness, balance, objectivity and transparency, and the obligation to include diverse viewpoints.”
The incredibly lopsided “balance,” lack of actually diverse viewpoints, and dubious fairness and accuracy displayed in the network’s nomination coverage reveals what the CPB was really going for with the new oversight it installed.
Not all NPR cabinet reporting has been spineless. A team of reporters led by Shannon Bond, for instance, published an in-depth piece (11/14/24) on Defense nominee Pete Hegseth that probed his strong links to extremist white Christian nationalism.
But three days later, another NPR report (11/17/24) talked about Hegseth as if the biggest problem with him is simply that senators simply “have come to expect” nominees with a different “background”:
Real trouble started brewing with Pete Hegseth, an Army vet known for his weekend commentary on Fox News, being named secretary of Defense. Although a veteran of the Iraq and Afghanistan missions, he does not have the background that senators have come to expect of someone appointed to head up the Department of Defense. Hegseth’s frequent attacks on the uniformed leadership of the armed services has included talk of firing current generals, including at the highest levels.
Similarly, on All Things Considered (11/16/24), NPR senior political editor Domenico Montanaro explained the “difference” between Trump’s 2016 picks and those this year, saying the 2016 nominations
sometimes stood in the way of things he wanted to do that broke with the normal way…that things had been done for years. This time around, he’s really surrounding himself with a team of loyalists.
What former cabinet members did was stop Trump from doing things that were unconstitutional or abuses of power. For NPR to minimize them as “the way things had been done for years” indicates that the network is currently more concerned with preserving its CPB funding than sustaining democracy.
ACTION ALERT: You can send a message to NPR public editor Kelly McBride here. Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective. Feel free to leave a copy of your message in the comments thread of this post.
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'Whole Thing Is an Epic Fraud': RFK Jr. Official Admits Goal Is to Elect Trump
"As the saying goes, when people show you who they are, believe them," said a Democratic National Committee spokesperson.
Apr 08, 2024
Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.'s stated platform in the 2024 presidential race centers on promoting an "honest government," a "clean, healthy environment," and the protection of civil liberties—but his New York State director last week boiled down the Independent campaign's true goal at a meeting with Republican voters: ensuring former President Donald Trump wins the election.
Speaking at a meeting last Thursday, Rita Palma first checked to make sure there were "no Biden voters in the house" before telling her audience that her "No. 1 priority" is to ultimately take electoral votes away from President Joe Biden.
"The Kennedy voter and the Trump voter," said Palma, "our mutual enemy is Biden."
States including New York, California, and "most of the Northeast" are likely to vote for the Democratic president, she continued, but if Kennedy, whom Palma referred to as Bobby, is on the ballot in New York, the campaign could help "get rid of Biden."
video shows RFK Jr’s NY director laying out a clear plan:
“The Kennedy voter & the Trump voter—our mutual enemy is Biden. … if nobody gets to 270, Congress picks the president. So who are they going to pick if it’s a R Congress? They’ll pick Trump.”pic.twitter.com/YQKDcEFUlm
— Edward-Isaac Dovere (@IsaacDovere) April 8, 2024
She urged the assembled GOP voters to give their "vote to Bobby and at least get rid of Biden and give those 28 electoral votes to Bobby rather than to Biden, thereby reducing Biden's 270 [electoral votes]."
"Two hundred seventy wins the election," added Palma, who was hired by Kennedy's campaign after she canvassed for Trump in 2016 and 2020. "If nobody gets to 270 then Congress picks the president, so who are they gonna pick if it's a Republican Congress? They'll pick Trump, so we're rid of Biden either way."
Political observers have noted in recent months that Kennedy has drawn support from right-wing billionaires, but Palma's blunt description of her plan to "block Biden from winning the presidency" left critics stunned as the video of the event circulated on social media on Monday.
"Whole thing is an epic fraud. Kennedy is spouting Russian propaganda, is now openly betraying the country," said political strategist Simon Rosenberg, referring to the candidate's recent comments about Russia's claim that it aims to "de-Nazify" Ukraine.
"RFK Jr.'s campaign is saying the quiet part out loud," Matt Corridoni, spokesperson for the Democratic National Committee, told CNN. "As the saying goes, when people show you who they are, believe them: RFK Jr.'s campaign isn't building a plan or a strategy to get 270 electoral votes, they're building one to help Trump return to the Oval Office."
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New Video Details Billionaire Trump Donors Bankrolling RFK Jr.'s Run
"Kennedy's donors know that he'll never step foot in the White House, but that was never their goal. Their goal is to ensure that Trump does."
Mar 27, 2024
A video published Tuesday by More Perfect Union sheds light on the ultrawealthy Republican donors to presumptive GOP nominee and former President Donald Trump's campaign coffers who are also financing Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s independent White House run—which many observers see as a potential spoiler for President Joe Biden's reelection bid.
The video—which came as Kennedy announced that California lawyer and philanthropist Nicole Shanahan is his running mate—underscores that the conspiracy theorist and former Democrat's biggest campaign contributor was also Trump's top donor in 2020.
"Who exactly is bankrolling RFK Jr.'s presidential push?" asked Brian Tyler Cohen, the popular YouTuber and political commentator who narrates the seven-minute video. "It turns out the answer has a lot more to do with Trump than putting a Kennedy back in the White House."
Kennedy said that he had nothing to do with the multimillion-dollar ad supporting his campaign that aired during the Super Bowl last month.
"American Values 2024, a super political action committee (PAC) backing Kennedy, dropped a cool 7 million bucks for the spot, which about 124 million people saw," Cohen said. "And propping up American Values 2024 is a large group of big donors... a bunch of millionaires and billionaires who are driven by one goal: to get RFK Jr. on the ballot in all key states across the country."
"Doing a majority of the legwork here is the super PAC's biggest donor, Timothy Mellon," the video notes. "More than half of the $38 million raised by American Values this cycle has come from Timothy Mellon alone."
The video continues:
Mellon, who hails from the 34th-richest family in America, and likened anti-poverty programs to slavery, has long been a significant Reopublican donor. He's given tens of millions to Republican congressional super PACs. He's generously funded Trump's super PAC, Make America Great Again Inc., to the tune of $16.5 million over the span of just two years. He was even Trump's top donor in 2020, and it doesn't look like he's going to stop tossing money at Trump anytime soon. His last donation of $5 million to the pro-Trump PAC came on January 30, 2024. Just 22 days prior, he sent the same amount to the pro-Kennedy PAC, making it pretty clear that Timothy Mellon doesn't want Kennedy, he knows Kennedy can spoil a Biden win, so he's keeping him afloat.
Boston Globe reporter Lissandra Villa de Petrzelka noted earlier this month that Mellon's donation record "is not linear."
"He has supported Democrats such as Sen. Joe Manchin, a centrist from West Virginia; progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York; and former Rep. Tulsi Gabbard of Hawaii and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema of Arizona, both Democrats before they left the party."
"But overwhelmingly, Mellon's money has funded conservative causes," she wrote. "According toThe Texas Tribune, he donated millions in stock to Texas for a fundraising effort for a border wall. The Wall Street Journal reported he also donated more than a million dollars to a legal defense fund set up by Jan Brewer, then-governor of Arizona, for an immigration crackdown law that received national backlash and was partially struck down in the courts."
Mellon isn't the only GOP megadonor funding Kennedy's campaign. According to the video, billionaire security specialist and author Gavin de Becker has donated more money to Kennedy—$10 million, so far—than to any other cause he's ever supported. Kennedy's campaign has paid de Becker's security firm $1.9 million for services and travel expenses during the 2024 run.
Cohen said that "one of the more mysterious sources of funding" for American Values 2024 is Planeta Management LLC," which has given the super PAC $4 million."
Because there is no listed name for the organization's leader on its filing papers, "we have no idea who the third-biggest donor to Kennedy' bid is," the video states.
"We do know his fourth-biggest donor, though," Cohen said. Leila Centner—who has supported Trump and disgraced former New York Republican Congressman George Santos—has given $1 million to Kennedy's campaign.
The video notes that Centner is the co-founder and CEO of Centner Academy, a private school with a policy of "trying to keep teachers and staff from getting lifesaving Covid vaccinations" because she believes that "tens of thousands of women all over the world have had adverse effects including hemorrhaging and miscarriages just by being near someone who had the vaccine."
Perhaps the nation's most prominent vaccine skeptic, Kennedy
toldFox News last year that he still believes the thoroughly debunked theory that vaccines cause autism. A 2019 measles epidemic in Samoa that killed scores of people, most of them children, has been linked to a prior visit by Kennedy in which he, his wife Cheryl Hines, and anti-vaccine activists spread deadly misinformation.
RFK Jr’s followers say, he’s going to change the world if he becomes President. I agree…
A world of death & destruction‼️
2019 — a measles outbreak hit children in Samoa. It became deadly after @RobertKennedyJr spread anti-vax fears. 👀 #Spoiler4Trump pic.twitter.com/OEUPp4zGA6
— Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline) March 27, 2024
Kennedy has brushed off criticism about his donors' political agenda.
"The [Democratic National Committee] is saying that one of my PACs, which I have nothing to do with... accepted money from a traditionally Republican donor, that somehow it should disqualify me from people voting for me," he said last month. "We get money from Democrats, Republicans, and Independents; I'm proud that we're reaching across party lines, that we're trying to bridge the divide."
The DNC has a dubious history of crushing third-party and independent challengers.
The new video notes that "all of these pro-Kennedy donations have so far been bearing fruit in a big way."
"With the help of American Values 2024, Kennedy has gotten on ballots in key states like Nevada and New Hampshire," Cohen said. "Additionally, he'll appear on the ballot in Hawaii and Utah... and Georgia, Arizona, and Michigan, three critical swing states with razor-thin margins."
"Kennedy's donors know that he'll never step foot in the White House, but that was never their goal," he added. "Their goal is to ensure that Trump does."
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