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2020 election

2020 Trump vs Biden election conspiracies

CNN brings ‘Reliable Sources’ host Brian Stelter out of exile. Here are his top 3 unreliable moments.
COVID-19
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CNN brings ‘Reliable Sources’ host Brian Stelter out of exile. Here are his top 3 unreliable moments.

Billionaire John Malone, now a Warner Bros. Discovery shareholder with major sway,
told CNBC several months ahead of Discovery’s 2022 merger with WarnerMedia, “I would like to see CNN evolve back to the kind of journalism that it started with, and actually have journalists, which would be unique and refreshing.”

During his brief stint as CEO at CNN, Chris Licht appeared keen to realize this dream. The company
announced in August 2022 that it was canceling “Reliable Sources with Brian Stelter” and canning its host.

After spending some time soul-searching and concern-mongering about so-called disinformation behind the scenes at Apple, at the World Economic Forum’s annual meeting in Davos, and in guest spots on other cable news shows, Stelter will return to CNN just in time for the election.

Stelter
announced Tuesday on X, “I’m returning to @CNN in a brand new role as Chief Media Analyst. I’ll be appearing on TV, developing digital content, and once again helming the Reliable Sources newsletter.”

While various personalities in the news media ecosystem have celebrated Stelter’s return, some critics have alternatively issued reminders about his track record for less-than-reliable reporting.

Here are three instances in which Stelter prioritized narrative over facts.

Hunter Biden laptop story

Less than a month ahead of the 2020 election, the New York Post
reported about the damning contents of Hunter Biden’s laptop and raised various questions about then-candidate Joe Biden, especially about his shady ties to Ukraine.

Elements of the intelligence community hostile to President Donald Trump —
including active CIA contractors — swooped in to shield Biden in the final weeks before the election, releasing a public letter on Oct. 19, 2020, asserting that the Hunter Biden laptop story had “all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation” intended to hurt the Democrat’s candidacy.

Facebook under Mark Zuckerberg
censored the corresponding post online.

Stelter dutifully did his part, insinuating that the accurate report published in the paper founded by Alexander Hamilton, censored by Big Tech, and maligned by a cabal of spies was “fake.”

“So let’s take a look at how a storyline is manufactured,” Stelter
said at the time. “In this case, a loudly anti-Biden storyline, redounding to Trump’s benefit. First, it helps to really view this as story-telling — not so much as news coverage but as political entertainment.”

‘That’s misinformation that you’re spreading on my program.’

Writing off the Post’s censored story as political entertainment, Stelter reassured his viewers that Hunter Biden “has already apologized — well, he’s already admitted to poor judgment” and that Joe Biden “has said it would not happen again.”

After alluding to a previous CNN report that suggested the published emails might be “tied to [a] Russian disinformation effort targeting Biden,” Stelter characterized as outlandish the possibility Hunter Biden might have left an incriminating laptop at a Delaware computer shop.

Stelter said:

The Post claimed that the emails were found on a laptop computer that was brought to a computer shop in Delaware in the spring of 2019; that a shop employee saw the emails and then was worried about getting in trouble or getting in danger, and he made copies of them. There is a lot about this story that does not add up.

“For all we know, these emails are made up,” said the then-CNN host. “But we do know that this is a classic example of the right-wing media machine.”

Steele dossier

Jerry Dunleavy, a former senior investigator for House Republicans on the Foreign Affairs Committee, recently
highlighted an instance in 2017 in which Stelter accused then-White House senior advisor Kellyanne Conway of spreading “misinformation” on his show after she criticized CNN’s obsession with the Steele dossier.

Blaze News
previously reported that the Steele dossier was paid for by Democratic operatives who hired research firm Fusion GPS, which then retained former British spy Christopher Steele, who in turn curated the documents of uncorroborated claims about Trump.

“We’ve got multiple investigations through [special counsel Robert] Mueller, through congressional and Senate committees, and CNN itself has been so hot on Russia, Russia, Russia — on the dossier,” said Conway. “CNN’s been obsessed with this dossier over a year now. And now that we know the
DNC and Clinton campaign paid the same firm for said dossier, which is completely unverified, we can’t get you excited.”

Stelter pounced on Conway,
saying, “That’s misinformation that you’re spreading on my program, and I don’t appreciate it.”

“Pieces of the dossier have been verified, and when you say it’s unverified, you actually mislead the American people,” said Stelter.

Stelter had a similar encounter with conservative radio show host Hugh Hewitt
detailed by the Washington Examiner in September 2020

“The primary subsource of the dossier was revealed last week to be a Russian agent investigated by the Obama Department of Justice in 2009 and ’10. The dossier is discredited. There was no collusion. These are factual matters. That’s my problem with ‘Hoax,'” Hewitt told Stelter, referencing the CNN host’s book.

“I’m reflecting, I’m a media reporter, and I’m not a Steele dossier reporter,” said Stelter. “What I know is that when you use the word ‘hoax’ over and over again the way the president has, it’s dangerous and poisonous because it makes people think there’s nothing real and nothing true anymore. And that’s what I think the problem is.”

Vaccine skepticism

Like countless other talking heads on cable news, Brian Stelter would not tolerate criticism of experimental COVID-19 vaccines during and after the pandemic.

‘He’s clearly not responsible enough to have a show that purports or pretends to be news.’

In a May 2021 monologue, Stelter said, “I’ve heard Tucker Carlson repeatedly say that many Americans are dying after getting the [COVID] shot. And he says it with the implication that the shots are to blame with no evidence at all. He’s scaring his audience so recklessly.”

Stelter ran a clip showing Carlson criticize mandatory vaccinations and coercive medicine.

“Carlson acts like he knows some secret truth that’s been covered up by some shadowy enterprise,” said Stelter, around the same time the Biden-Harris administration was
pressuring social media companies to censor vaccine criticism — censorship Stelter appears to have defended on another occasion.

“Maybe you should be writing some junk movie of the week for Netflix or Tubi. Maybe you should go write horror novels for a living, because he’s clearly not responsible enough to have a show that purports or pretends to be news.”

Stelter’s comments have aged poorly. After all, at least one vaccine company
has admitted its product can cause deadly blood clots. The vaccines Stelter appeared desperate to defend from criticism have also been linked to various ailments, including heart disease, blood clots, hemorrhages, gut issues, thromboses, myocarditis, pericarditis, and autoimmune diseases

Dutch researchers
noted in a recent peer-reviewed study in BMJ Public Health about how vaccines and containment protocols likely boosted excess mortality that: “Both medical professionals and citizens have reported serious injuries and deaths following vaccination to various official databases in the Western World, such as VAERS in the USA, EudraVigilance in the European Union and Yellow Card Scheme in the UK.”

Months after Stelter suggested that Carlson was not booking the right people or seeking the right answers, he ran a segment with a censor from a Biden-allied narrative curation outfit discussing “how ‘do your own research’ leads to misinformation.”

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The work to secure elections matters more than words at the convention
Elections

The work to secure elections matters more than words at the convention

As Democrats gather in Chicago for their convention, they will deliver soaring speeches, engage in over-the-top rhetoric, and prompt media pundits to peddle hot takes and outlandish predictions.

Amidst the endless war of words, the most important story may be the one no one is discussing: State election laws have changed — for the better.

None of these reforms matter if there are no criminal consequences for bad actors who violate election laws.

Lawmakers across the country answered the call of voters to protect their ballots. Legislators from Tallahassee, Atlanta, and Des Moines to Jefferson City and Columbus took action to protect democracy at the ballot box. In committee rooms, at legislative hearings, in offices and chambers, they crafted strong election integrity bills. And despite an overwhelming media campaign of threats and dishonest coverage, they put Americans first.

Since 2020, 30 state legislatures have passed 225 bills that secure ballots, increase process accountability, and provide transparency to the American people. It’s worth looking at what exactly they’ve accomplished.

First, state lawmakers decided it was common sense to stop billionaires from selectively handing out cash to election officials whose job it is to run elections impartially.

In the past four years, 28 states have banned one of the worst abuses of the 2020 election — the private funding of public election administration. Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg “donated” more than $400 million to election offices across the country. Labeled as COVID relief grants and funneled through a nonprofit organization, this money, known as “Zuckerbucks,” allowed a private organization to not only fund public election operations but also fund them on a highly partisan basis.

Take Georgia, for example, where election offices were awarded $45 million in Zuckerbucks during the 2020 cycle. The money was spent predominantly on get-out-the-vote efforts in strategic districts. As a result, 75% of the counties that received grants shifted significantly leftward. Georgia lawmakers were the first to ban this tactic — and they came back again in 2023 to close a loophole when a government official in DeKalb County took another $2 million in violation of the ban.

In Wisconsin and Louisiana, where Democratic governors twice vetoed anti-Zuckerbucks bills, state lawmakers strategically passed legislation that put bans on the ballot. Voters in both states overwhelmingly approved the laws, which did not require the governors’ signatures and are now in effect.

Second, state legislators recognized the common sense in securing the absentee voting process — determining that it should not be easier to get an absentee ballot through the mail than it is to receive one in person on Election Day.

Since 2020, eight state legislatures have passed bills to require identification, such as a driver’s license number, on absentee ballots. Absentee voting is inherently more vulnerable than traditional in-person Election Day voting, and identification helps to secure these ballots cast by mail.

Lawmakers in states like Ohio, Georgia, Missouri, and South Carolina all faced aggressive scrutiny from the media for passing voter identification legislation. Yet bill sponsors, committee chairmen, and leadership didn’t back down. Ultimately, the voter identification bills that have been challenged have withstood court scrutiny and will be in place to secure absentee votes in November.

Third, state lawmakers passed common-sense reforms to protect vulnerable voters — like the elderly — from ballot harvesting tactics.

In 2020, partisan special-interest groups routinely gathered absentee ballots from voters with no delivery safeguards. Voters had no way of knowing whether their ballots were tampered with or even delivered at all. Lawmakers correctly decided that political operatives, with a stake in election outcomes, should not be handling ballots.

Ten states have recently enacted reforms to stop ballot harvesting practices by narrowly defining who may return an absentee ballot on the voter’s behalf. Florida, Iowa, Ohio, and Texas passed laws that allow specific people, such as a family or household member or designated caretaker, to return a ballot for somebody else.

Of course, none of these reforms matter if there are no criminal consequences for bad actors who violate election laws. State lawmakers in four states enacted reforms to investigate and prosecute nefarious behavior and hold election violators accountable.

In Florida, legislators established a dedicated Office of Election Crimes and Security. This investigative office has trained law enforcement officials with election expertise to review complaints, oversee a public fraud hotline, and conduct investigations. Since the office was created, officials have received more than 2,000 complaints and initiated over 1,000 independent investigations.

These changes represent just a few of the accomplishments that state lawmakers fought hard to achieve. While much more work remains on election integrity, these efforts will lead to safer, more secure elections — exactly what voters demanded.

State lawmakers put Americans first. And it’s their work — not the words of national political parties — that might just determine the outcome in November.

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