Earlier this year, Republicans were under orders from Donald Trump to block and kill any border bill so he would have something to run on in the fall presidential campaign, and it was up to GOP surrogates like the Media Research Center to support that power play — never mind that a bipartisan bill had been negotiated with Democrats — and to complain that Trump’s cynical placing of his campaign prospects before the good of the country was being called out. The MRC’s point man in talking down any bipartisan deal on the border was Jorge Bonilla, who tried to downplay even the mere existence of a deal. He complained in a Jan. 26 post:
There isn’t an actual border deal in Washington yet but you wouldn’t know that, given the media’s collective caterwauling over former President Donald Trump’s comments on a prospective border deal, which the media then proceeded to frame as a killing of the deal.
How do we know there is no deal? Because NBC News told us as much as they closed out their coverage of the border kerfuffle:
[…]ABC News, on the other hand, covered the “deal” as though it were a campaign stand-alone, with no mention of Ukraine until the end of Mary Bruce’s report, and no mention of Israel at all. Bruce, known around these parts as the Biden White House’s chief apple polisher, made it a pure Trump-adverse story focused on process and on the campaign.
[…]Speaker Mike Johnson has made clear that any deal for Ukraine money MUST include the House-passed H.R. 2, as a minimum border enforcement component. Whatever the Senate and White House are negotiating on, it isn’t H.R. 2. That somehow, goes unmentioned here. Why bother with facts and context when it’s easier to pound out easy “Orange Man Bad” content all day, every day?
Bonilla continued to whine: “The three major networks mischaracterized Trump’s opposition to this imaginary border deal, which is not H.R. 2 and is therefore unlikely to pass the House of Representatives. No substance, just plenty of negotiation with the wind and Orange Man Bad.”
Bonilla complained about other coverage in a Jan. 28 post:
Univision anchor Jorge Ramos, during an interview with U.S. Congressman Henry Cuellar (D-TX), expressed surprise and pain over the fact that the current border deal being negotiated between the Senate and the White House contains no provision to legalize anyone in the country illegally.
Here’s your periodic reminder that Univision, as currently constituted, remains an immigration-advocacy PAC with a broadcast license:
[…]The general purpose of this interview was to suggest that Mexico should not act to restrict northward migrant flows, that there really isn’t such a thing as a migrant crisis, and that it is awful that the border deal does not include a massive grant of amnesty.
In another Jan. 28 post, Bonilla actually defended a Republican senator for trying to negotiate a bipartisan border bill, if only to play the “drive-by media” card by accusing an interviewer of trying to “pull a fast one and manufacture a quote” by him that was critical of Trump for having not read the planned bill.
Bonilla was back to attacking the bill and its supporters (and anyone calling out the cynical Republican opposition) in a Jan. 30 post:
Across the dial the network evening network newscasts, using the same talking points, pumped the Senate-White House border deal, and knocked Republicans opposing the deal. And in so doing, they left out some pretty important details.
[…]The networks have purposefully left out the fact that House Republicans have passed a bill of their own which they’ve established as a precondition for the appropriation of any monies to Ukraine- H.R. 2. Of course, this is intentional inasmuch as it allows the media to falsely cast House Republicans, led by Speaker Mike Johnson, as a bunch of do-nothings obstructing the Senate compromise. But the record reflects that the bill has been sitting in the Senate for over 8 months now.
Another thing omitted by the networks is the fact that the president does not need legislation in order to begin to fix the crisis along the border. At a bare minimum, he can just reverse the swath of executive orders he signed upon taking office. To mention this is verboten, of course, because it clearly places the blame for the border disaster squarely on the feet of Joe Biden. To admit he already has the authorities to fix the border is to admit he broke the border on those same authorities.
Bonilla offered no proof of this other than parroting a right-wing activist on Fox News who was “making the case for existing authorities,” and he made no attempt to fact-check the activist’s claims.
Bonilla whined in a Feb. 1 post that “Like good firefighters, ABC World News Tonight rushed to defend the stalled border bill currently being negotiated between The White House and the Senate. This is but the most recent instance of ABC’s going to the mat for this as of yet unseen legislation.” He huffed that “the House already passed an immigration bill- H.R. 2, which was a precondition for passage of assistance to Ukraine and Israel,” adding: “This report, far from delivering any actual news, served to build a foundation with which to blame Republicans- both for the failure of this bill should it fail to get enacted, and for the broader border disaster.” As if Republicans aren’t trying to engineer the failure of the bill in order to blame Biden for the situation at the border.
Bonilla complained further in a Feb. 4 post, complete with another lazy “drive-by media” reference:
As (unfavorable) reaction to the just-dropped Senate-White House border bill continues to roll in, it is important to note the extent to which the drive-by media are doing the White House’s legwork by pushing this bill.
Watch as host Kristen Welker absolutely berates Speaker Mike Johnson into accepting the Senate bill on NBC’s Meet the Press:
[…]In order for the Acela Media’s shilling of the Senate bill to be successful, they must first depict the House as do-nothings on immigration. Johnson denies Welker that ground by addressing that H.R. 2, the House-passed immigration bill, has been “collecting dust” in the Senate. Thus Welker’s hand is forced on “compromise”. H.R. 2 can’t pass in the Senate, she says, so the House must capitulate.
[…]Remember this interview as Republicans begin to register their opposition to the border bill, for it is a tonesetter. Passage of the bill qualifies as a “doing something” which might goose Biden’s terrible numbers on immigration ahead of the election. With the Senate bill now public watch for the Acela Media’s calls to “do something” intensify, and to direct that scrutiny straight to the House, which were actually the first to “do something” on immigration.
Bonilla didn’t mention that HR 2 was always going to be a non-starter that got pushed through the House by hardline Republicans without Democratic support a mere couple weeks after being introduced without committee hearings.
Curtis Houck contributed to the narrative in a Feb. 5 post designed to peddle right-wing talking points against the bipartisan bill:
With the senators behind the bipartisan border deal having finally unveiled the text of their bill on Sunday night, the “big three” of ABC, CBS, and NBC went all out on their Monday morning news shows to fluff the pillows of dealmakers, giving few to any details beyond cursory allusions to give it maximum appeal and painting GOP opposition as driven by former President Trump.
Our friends at America First Legal have done phenomenal work with numerous threads starting on Sunday night (such as ones here, here, and here) debunking a number of the points made on the networks, including the claim the deal would end “catch and release” of illegal immigrants and that the border would shutter if crossings reach a certain threshold. It also exposed details left out by the networks, including provisions Biden could unilaterally ignore.
Houck failed to disclose that America First Legal is a right-wing group that supports Trump no matter what.