We’ve documented how the Media Research Center embraced Robert Kennedy Jr. — a candidate its employees would never vote for — as a spoiler for President Biden’s re-election. Then, when Kennedy switched to running as an independent, the MRC quickly dropped him and embraced a different long-shot Democrat, Dean Phillips. It continued to ironically do so as the presidential primaries got underway. Tim Graham complained in a Jan. 13 post:
Politico columnist Michael Schaeffer sympathetically interviewed Democratic presidential candidate Dean Phillips, congressman from Minnesota, about how he’s been “blackballed” by liberal media. “I’m disgusted that professionals who ostensibly have committed their entire careers to sharing truth and to providing facts and to sharing information with American voters … are fundamentally avoiding their responsibilities.”
Since declaring his candidacy on October 27, Phillips complained, he hasn’t been interviewed once on MSNBC. Ditto the big Sunday shows. Schaffer wrote “He’s been on CNN a handful of times, but never given the town-hall treatment afforded fellow single-digit candidates like Vivek Ramaswamy and Chris Christie, both of whom happen to have challenged Donald Trump rather than Biden.”
The only broadcast outlets that seem to want him are on the right or in the middle.
“Right media has been more than invitational,” Phillips says. By contrast, “I don’t think there’s an MSNBC viewer that even knows that I’m a congressman, because what’s being portrayed is designed to prevent that education.”
Graham refused to explore the implications of Phillips being an honored guest at right-wing media outlets — after all, they, like him, want to puff Phillips up and portray him as a Biden spoiler. If that wasn’t the case, Graham and his employer wouldn’t have dropped Kennedy like a hot potato when he stopped running as a Democrat.
Graham spent his Jan. 17 column rehashing his whining on Phillips’ behalf: ‘Phillips complained to Politico that since declaring his candidacy on October 27, he hasn’t been interviewed once on MSNBC, or the big Sunday talk shows. CNN’s had him on, but not in a ‘town hall’ setting like the Republicans this cycle, or congressman candidates like Eric Swalwell and Seth Moulton in the last cycle.”
Curtis Houck effectively served as Phillip’s (paid?) PR person in a Jan. 24 post:
With the liberal media having achieved their dream 2024 match-up with former President Donald Trump all-but set to face off against President Joe Biden, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC refused to acknowledge the existence of Congressman Dean Phillips (D-MN) as President Biden’s primary challenger and pulled 20 percent in the (unofficial) New Hampshire Democratic primary.
It wasn’t surprising at all as Phillips has been an afterthought for much of this campaign in the eyes of the liberal media.
CBS Mornings came the closest to mentioning Phillips with an on-air graphic with the vote tally from the Granite State on the Democratic side with a picture of the congressman, the number of votes he received, the percentage, and just his latest name.
Houck was silent on all the press Phillips had been getting in right-wing media — including his own employer — trying to build Phillips up as a threat to Biden. Meanwhile, Graham spent his Jan. 24 podcast shilling further for him: “Democrat Dean Phillips almost hit 20 percent against President Biden. Haley’s voters were lauded for their votes, but Phillips remained an asterisk in the pro-Biden media’s coverage.” This time, he was completely silent about right-wing media support for Phillips.
Nicholas Fondacaro joined the MRC’s Phillips PR team in a Jan. 25 post touting how the MRC’s favorite non-Fox News (yet still conservative-leaning) channel covered him:
While the media largely kept the focus of Tuesday’s New Hamsphire [sic] primary on the Republican side and largely ignored the Democratic side, President Biden had a launch a last-minute and desperate write-in campaign to prevent being upstaged by challenger Congressman Dean Phillips (MN). Phillips managed to score nearly 20 percent of the vote despite the liberal media barely covering his campaign; and during NewsNation’s coverage that evening, co-anchor Chris Cuomo pointed out how the liberal media didn’t want to show him any “love.”
Contrary to how most of the liberal media tried to talk about Phillips sparingly, he was brought up multiple times by the NewsNation anchors. Cuomo and co-anchor Dan Abrams even called out the liberal media for largely refusing to give him the time of day, essentially suppressing his campaign:
[…]With the votes still being tallied, at one point in the night, Phillips had an impressive 25 percent of the vote. “He’s got about 25 percent of the vote. Obviously, Joe Biden is a write-in candidate because he’s not even on the ballot. But nevertheless, 25 percent for one alternative Democrat,” Abrams marveled.
Graham grumbled in a Feb. 4 post that “both NPR and PBS rolled out their red carpets for South Carolina Congressman Jim Clyburn to talk about the Democrat presidential primary season officially beginning in his state — NPR offered eight minutes, PBS seven. Nowhere in those 15 minutes did either the hosts or the guest mention that President Biden had any primary opposition. The names Dean Phillips and Marianne Williamson were completely absent.” He followed up with a Feb. 5 post devoted to whining that a former Republican chairman pointed out Phillips’ terrible showing in South Carolina):
Former RNC chairman Michael Steele awarded Democrat presidential candidate Dean Phillips a forum on their new show The Weekend on Sunday after Phillips drew two percent in the South Carolina primary. But this is MSDNC, so it was mostly so he could shame him into getting out of the race and stop “prolonging” anti-Biden narratives.
As if the Republicans will knock it off if Phillips gets out? MSNBC proudly put out the tweet of the shaming:
[…]One could easily say: What’s the harm in staying in if he’s only pulling two percent? But somehow, Biden having any challengers, no matter how much the pro-Biden media ignore them, is dangerous to the Democrats.
“The chairman in me says, ‘What the hell you doing? And why are you doing it?’” Steele asked. He said the party chose Biden in 2020, and not Kamala Harris or Bernie Sanders, and now he’s the incumbent. “So what makes you think after that — an incumbent president, Joe Biden’s not going anywhere. He’s not stepping down!”
Again, Graham was completely silent about the agenda-driven right-wing cheerleading for Phillips that he’s perpetuating. This was all rehashed in his Feb. 5 podcast.
Phillips got only passing mentions by Graham and his gang after that — even they seemed to realize that Phillips’ campaign was going nowhere, even after that cheerleading from right-wing media. It’s as if they are being willfully oblivious to the fact that a candidate whose main constituency is right-wing media isn’t going to go far in Democratic politics. You’d think they would have learned that lesson with Kennedy.
The MRC concluded its ironic crusade with a March 21 so-called “study” by Alex Christy whining that the fringe non-Biden candidates didn’t get much coverage in non-right-wing media:
In 2020 and 2024 respectively, GOP President Donald Trump and Democratic President Joe Biden each faced three longshot primary challengers, but the media coverage of these campaigns was vastly different, a NewsBusters study has found.
Analysts analyzed all programming on ABC, NBC, CBS, PBS, CNN, and MSNBC of Trump challengers from April 15, 2019 to March 18, 2020, and of Biden challengers from March 4, 2023 to March 6, 2024, and found that the Republican challengers of former Massachusetts Gov. Bill Weld, former Illinois Rep. Joe Walsh, and former South Carolina Gov. Mark Sanford got 115 interviews during the campaign. By contrast, the 2024 Democratic challengers of self-help author Marianne Williamson, environmental lawyer and anti-vaccine activist Robert F. Kennedy Jr., and Minnesota Rep. Dean Phillips received only 25.
[…]However, during the 2024 Democratic cycle, RFK Jr. received a vastly disproportionate amount of coverage as anchor after anchor warned their potentially disillusioned liberal audiences that, despite the family name, Kennedy was and is a dangerous anti-vaccine conspiracy theorist and Russia apologist, the left, including 2020 Williamson, and the media’s prior record of vaccines and Russia notwithstanding. For instance, on June 20, 2023’s edition of CNN Tonight, Abby Phillip asserted, “As expected, he made a lot of wild and, frankly, dangerous claims” on The Joe Rogan Experience.
The percentage breakdowns for Democrats were 71 percent for Kennedy, 21 percent for Phillips, and just eight percent for Williamson.
As per usual, Christy refused to evaluate the performance of Fox News, even though it would have been relevant given the channel’s agenda (and that of its fellow right-wing media) of puffing up fringe Democrats.