The most obvious occasion for civility in Washington is the sudden death of a public official. It shouldn’t be a time for score-settling and expressing glee. Lindsey Graham’s death led to both of these. They first called it a “sudden illness,” but it was later revealed as an aortic dissection, a collapse of a major artery.
MRC Free Speech America Vice President Dan Schneider and NewsBusters nightly-news analyst Jorge Bonilla joined the show to discuss the reaction.
Many Democrats paid heartfelt tributes to Sen. Graham, but several media figures couldn’t resist putting an anti-Trump spin on the occasion. On MS NOW, Joe Scarborough made it all about himself by insisting he told the president the war in Iran wouldn’t be as easy as Sen. Graham said it would be.
On CNN, Jake Tapper baked the original recipe for CNN. Graham was once a “maverick” who supported liberal policy goals alongside Sen. John McCain, but then he ruined it all by “affixing” himself to the president, becoming a close Trump ally. Leftist magazines like The Atlantic recalled how the senator was “complicit” in Trump’s evil.
Then there were mean-spirited people like the actress Margaret Cho, who chirped that people died in threes, implying McConnell had died along with Graham, and hinting she hoped Trump would be next. It’s amazing she plays someone else’s therapist on the ABC drama Will Trent.
The Free Speech America watchdogs found Apple News and Google News suppressed negative stories on hard-left Graham Platner for months. They had no time for Nazi tattoos or Platner identifying himself as a communist. They also found the Big Four News Apps had next to zero interest in foreigners becoming delighted by America during their visit for World Cup soccer games.
In a possible move to dissociate himself from his endorsement of Platner, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) jetted to Israel and became embroiled in a situation when his group crossed security lines in the West Bank. In an interview with the Israeli ambassador to the United States on “Face the Nation,” CBS host Margaret Brennan tried to defend the Khanna. The ambassador pointed out that Khanna refused to involve the government in getting him a visa, that he booked the trip with groups opposed to Israel, and this controversy could have been avoided.
In Washington, controversy swirled over the hospitalization of former Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell. The senator issued a statement with a photograph, but Democrats insisted a video would be better proof that he’s alive and well and talking weighty public policy issues. This raises the perennial and bipartisan problem that politicians (especially in the Senate) stay too long, not knowing when to quit.
Enjoy the podcast below. The audio can be found here.
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Read Full Article: https://newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/tim-graham/2026/07/13/newsbusters-podcast-anti-trump-spin-partisan-glee-grahams-death
