Brian Ross Crapped the Bed Again
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RUSH: The three major networks have yet to explain why Brian Ross has been suspended for a month. The three major networks are ignoring this story. Brian Ross, once again, crapped the bed on Friday with an absolute BS story that he had to know was BS. And we opened the program on Friday calling him out, urging everybody not to panic over what Brian Ross was reporting, because you can’t trust it.
This guy has reported lies about me throughout my career, some of it genuinely damaging. And if I weren’t a public figure, I would have actionable opportunities on it. But he has shown himself to be a full-fledged partisan, and ABC knows it, and Brian Ross gives ABC exactly what it wants. The idea that they’re outraged and disappointed over what happened is crazy. He gets a four-week unpaid vacation over the month of December, which as we all know is the time we hit the Christmas break traditionally and not a whole lot of news is made. So it ain’t that bad a deal for Brian Ross, and I doubt that his reputation in his own mind has been damaged at all here.
But let’s go back and relive the moment when I tried to calm the waters here on Friday. What Brian Ross had reported was that the president, as a candidate, had encouraged members of his team to call the Russians and tamper with Obama administration foreign policy. He mentioned that Trump ordered this done as a candidate. Were that true, that would be big news. And that would be very bad. And that would have been very wrong.
But it didn’t happen. It happened after Trump became president-elect, after he had won the election, and it happened during the transition, making it not a big deal at all, making it quite common for Trump ordering various members of his team to call countries and their representatives to set the table for the incoming new administration. There is nothing criminal about it except they’re trying to criminalize this particular presidential transition.
Okay, now, let me ask you a question. You’re Brian Ross ABC News Washington, investigative reporter, chief investigative correspondent, trench coat and everything, and there’s a mass shooting in Aurora, Colorado and the first instinct you have after learning the man’s name is to go check a Tea Party roster? That’s the first instinct you’ve got?
The first question that occurs to you? Hm-hm, Jim Holmes, I wonder if this guy happens to be a mad right-winger Tea Party member. And, lo and behold, he goes wherever he has to to find these rosters of members of the Tea Party. Lo and behold, there’s a Jim Holmes there! His heart must have been beating, he must have been unable to contain himself here, he might have had to exert more control over his bodily functions than you’d ever know possible. He could not wait to get this story on the air that the shooter was a Tea Party member.
It turned out not to be true. “But, Rush, but, Rush, he alluded in that report, I heard, ‘We don’t know if it’s the same Jim Holmes.’” They were hoping. It doesn’t matter if they knew or not. They made the report and they established the connection, and you know as well as I do that the low-information crowd hears this stuff and then once a connection is made and the emotional reaction occurs they hear nothing that follows.
Tea Party. Shot up a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado. Brian Ross was not suspended for that. He was suspended by ABC News on Friday, but again, ABC, CBS, NBC, the three primary broadcast networks have not even reported that. He’s been suspended without pay for four weeks during December. The first report was that he was suspended with pay, which meant that he was gonna get a four-week Christmas vacation paid. But it turned out not to be the case.
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