CNSNews.com didn’t give the confirmation hearings of other Trump administration nominees the ridiculously biased and cheerleading treatment it afforded Jeff Sessions.
The only straight-news article out of the bunch was a Jan. 11 piece by Susan Jones saying that secretary of state nominee Rex Tillerson called for an “open and frank dialogue with Russia regarding its ambitions.” Jones didn’t, however, mention the controversy over Trump’s (and Tillerson’s) links with Russia that make such a “open and frank dialogue” necessary.
Beyond that, however, the selection of subjects on which CNS did hearing articles on other appointees made its bias clear.
For the hearing for HUD secretary-designate Ben Carson, CNS did an approving article on Carson saying he would “absolutely not play favorites for anyone,” but also an article on Carson defending HUD’s rental assistance program. Given that CNS has previously criticized rental assistance programs — especially when it means poor people of color could live in more affluent, white-dominated suburbs — that article was meant as a warning shot.
While CNS wrote in a mocking tone about how “Newly elected Sen. Kamala Harris, a California Democrat, repeatedly pressed Rep. Mike Pompeo (R-Kan.) at his confirmation hearing on Wednesday for assurances that he will not discriminate against homosexuals and Muslims if he is confirmed as CIA director,” it also wrote with a more disapproving tone over secretary of state-designate James Mattis not being opposed to gays in the military or women in combat. CNS, like the rest of the MRC, is rabidly anti-gay.
And while CNS had touted Republican Sen. Marco Rubio saying flattering things about Sessions, it censored Rubio’s tough questioning of Tillerson, since doing so didn’t advance Tillerson’s, or Trump’s, prospects or CNS’ right-wing agenda.