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Marco Rubio hit the full sweep on Sunday by appearing on “Face the Nation”, Meet the Press”, “This Week”, and “Fox News Sunday”, and he left a lot of smoldering debris in his wake.
Pre-Written Field Reports (Pt. 1) – CBS NEWS
She just will not learn…
Margaret Brennan had Marco Rubio on her show again, and like always, she was overmatched. As she tried to sell the concept that President Trump was looking to leverage the leaders of Europe into forcing a bad deal onto Ukraine, Rubio shot her premise down hard.
.@SecRubio nukes Margaret Brennan: "This is such a stupid media narrative that [European leaders] are coming here tomorrow because Trump is going to bully Zelensky into a bad deal. We've been working with these people for weeks... WE invited them to come." 🔥 pic.twitter.com/YoiyyA3xsp
— Rapid Response 47 (@RapidResponse47) August 17, 2025
Pre-Written Field Reports (Pt. 2) – NBC NEWS
Chuck Todd would be proud of the incompetence.
Next, it was onto “Face the Nation,” and hostess Kristen Welker did not fare any better. Welker tried to pin Rubio to the mat with a reference to a past quote of his calling Putin a “liar,” suggesting that striking a deal with him in that context was foolhardy. So…her position is that it is a failure to not have a peace deal, while also saying it is wrong to make a peace deal with Putin…???
Rubio dispatched with her fractured logic blithely, and introduced common sense to the discussion.
🚨 MARCO RUBIO SMACKDOWN: NBC's Kristen Welker attempts a "gotcha" by playing a clip from 2022 of Rubio saying Putin is a "professional liar" who can't make any deals. pic.twitter.com/1nxsDq4Znn
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 17, 2025
But her attempt failed - miserably.
WELKER: "Given that - what makes you think if…
Pre-Written Field Reports (Pt. 3) – ABC NEWS
Did Martha borrow show notes from the other two?
Martha Raddatz, sitting in for Jonathan Karl, was bothered by the idea that there had been any deference at all paid to Vladimir Putin during the summit in Alaska. Apparently, Martha thought it would be a better negotiating tactic to sway the Russian leader to a peace deal by insulting him and treating him with disrespect.
Once again, it took only the application of pragmatic thinking for Rubio to make Raddatz appear lost in her chair.
You're not going to end a war between Russia and Ukraine without dealing with Putin. That's... that's just common sense. I shouldn't even have to say it. So people can say whatever they want. Ultimately, at the end of the day, we have to get the Russian side to agree to things that they don't want to agree to if we're going to have peace. If not, there'll just be a war.
🚨 BREAKING: ABC just tried to grill Marco Rubio for the US giving Putin the "red carpet" and President Trump having a "warm handshake" - and Rubio was having NONE of it.
— Eric Daugherty (@EricLDaugh) August 17, 2025
"When I hear people say that, 'oh, it elevates him.' Well, all we do is talk about Putin all the time! All… pic.twitter.com/21LT63Kzo2
Pulitzer Prize Nomination – NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO
Okay…so you have never seen an agenda paper issued to the press before.
Over the weekend, NPR felt they had broken open a huge scandal in development. Also seen this weekend, NPR gave every indication why they were justifiably defunded.
In what they were sure was an explosive story from the summit in Alaska, the outlet came into possession of what they deemed to be “government papers” supposedly left behind by an administration official. What they displayed were eight pages of rather mundane details about the summit, such as the names and faces of those in attendance, as well as a seating chart, and the menu for the planned luncheon.
That any reporter, and for that matter any editor, felt this was some kind of security breach – found on the public printer of a hotel business suite in the lobby – is too rich.
National Public Radio Face-Plants As It Delivers a Face-Palm ‘Exclusive’ From the Alaska Summithttps://t.co/QuZqjftEwX
— RedState (@RedState) August 17, 2025
Artisanally-Crafted Narratives – NEW YORK TIMES
If we type it out in crayon, Peter, would that help you understand?
Peter Baker is very bothered by the efforts President Trump has undertaken in order to make the streets of Washington, D.C., safer for residents. Pete joins the growing crowd of media figures who appear to be in favor of crime and not improving the conditions in the area.
He thinks he came up with a valid rejoinder to this move by the administration, listing off several cities with allegedly worse crime statistics where Trump is not taking similar action.
Apart from his missing out on how those cities listed are run by Democratic mayors, Mr. Baker is apparently confused over jurisdictional parameters, and also confused as to how D.C., as a federal district under federal control, is in fact an area where the president can take action.
Washington's homicide rate is the 11th highest among large US cities, but eight of the 10 with higher rates are in red states — Mississippi, Alabama, Missouri, Tennessee, Ohio and Louisiana. Trump has not sent National Guard to any of them. @RussContreras https://t.co/ho5arZttoM
— Peter Baker (@peterbakernyt) August 15, 2025
Border-line Obsession – BBC
When the truth makes Israel look better, then you'd better avoid that truth.
The issue of food supplies inside of Gaza continues to vex the media, as they want desperately to lean heavily on blaming Israel for the starvation, but the damned details keep interrupting this narrative. We recently covered how news outlets were all jumping on the same images of a starving toddler who was later discovered to be suffering from a genetic condition. This past week, there was a report of Hamas figures disguising themselves as aid workers in order to confiscate supplies for Palestinians.
Now we have the BBC covering the story of a 20-year-old woman who died, saying in their headline it was due to malnutrition, hinting that Israel was at fault.. Reading into the piece is where you find these inconvenient facts:
She died from leukemia
Israel had made her transport to Italy possible for treatment
Israel wanted to have her flown out at a much earlier point in time
As an indication of being caught, the BBC has now changed the headline to “Gazan Woman Flown To Hospital Dies In Italy”.
Here's how media coverage fuels political pressure that helps Hamas. Heartbreaking headline. Sounds like she was flown to Italy because of starvation. Turns out she had leukemia, Israel had not only facilitated her evacuation — it had offered Italy to fly her out earlier. pic.twitter.com/XCUTExDxcP
— Eylon Levy (@EylonALevy) August 17, 2025
Reporting On The Mirror – (formerly?) MSNBC
The effort to applaud being kicked out is ringing rather hollow.
This morning on “Morning Joe,” they broke some big news concerning their network. The cable news channel at some point in the remaining year will undergo a full name change, complete with a new logo. This is all due to MSNBC being spun off with a number of other cable channels into a separate company called Versant.
Here was Joe Scarborough announcing on 'Morning Joe' that MSNBC will be changing its name to MS NOW once the network completes its split from NBCUniversal.
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) August 18, 2025
Watch these clowns try and spin this as fan-freak-tastic. pic.twitter.com/1rKWa3Rr7z
As of this month, the production has had to move out of the NBC sound stages to its location, and soon, the broadcast network is demanding that they drop the use of “NBC” and the peacock logo entirely, as it divests itself from this sinking enterprise.
Now, we are not saying the new logo could appear as "PMS NOW"; we are simply saying that others are saying this. Behold, the new branding:
MSNBC will be renaming itself to this. And this isn’t a joke. pic.twitter.com/3TRxvrIXlA
— Joe Concha (@JoeConchaTV) August 18, 2025
