BROADCAST BIAS: Networks demonize ICE as ‘Trump’s Gestapo,’ downplay attacks on them
Minnesota Democrat Gov. Tim Walz pulled out the smears last May at a law-school graduation. The agents of Immigrations and Custom Enforcement (ICE) were "Trump’s modern-day Gestapo," "scooping folks up off the streets." It had been Joe Biden’s ICE just four months earlier. How quickly can an agency descend into fascism?
The national broadcast networks never found that objectionable or newsworthy. The "independent fact-checkers" yawned. Comparing President Donald Trump to Hitler is 24/7 Democrat messaging. Comparing law-enforcement agencies to storm troopers is perfectly fine – when the Democrats aren’t in charge of them.
It’s become clear that Democrats from Walz on down don’t just oppose mass deportation. They oppose any deportations. They don’t welcome cooperation with ICE. They push resistance against ICE.
Because ICE is now relentlessly demonized, it shouldn’t be surprising that they’ve been on the receiving end of violence. The broadcast networks yawn. In September in Chicago, an illegal alien ran over and dragged an ICE agent in Chicago until the alien was shot dead. But there was no sympathy for the dragged agent on ABC, CBS, NBC or PBS.
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Last December in St. Paul, Minn., an illegal alien allegedly ran over an ICE agent and bit another agent when he was apprehended. The national networks showed they don’t care. They didn’t bring that up after the latest incident.
The death of Renee Nicole Good when she threatened to drive into an ICE agent is a tragedy. If activists like Good wanted to protest ICE by showing up wherever they seek to enforce the law and film it on their phones, that’s in our First Amendment tradition. But it’s a crime to get involved in trying to impede law enforcement activity.
Everyone knew how the broadcast networks would cover this death, with massive energy and outrage. That didn’t happen for women killed by illegal immigrants. We can guess the elitist media would say these murders were atypical for illegal immigrants. But using that logic, apparently ICE shooting a protester is typical for them?
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The broadcast networks didn’t care about 12-year-old Jocelyn Nungaray being raped and murdered, or the rape and murder of Maryland mom Rachel Morin. When they gave 20 minutes to the trial of Laken Riley’s illegal-immigrant killer last November, it paled in comparison to the 78 minutes the networks gave a little-known comedian at a Trump rally last October calling Puerto Rico "a floating island of garbage." They were all trying to get former Vice President Kamala Harris and Walz into the White House.
Not everyone let Democrats rant without a challenge, like Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey demanding ICE "get the f--- out of Minneapolis." Newly minted "CBS Evening News" anchor Tony Dokoupil asked Frey: "The rhetoric we just heard, other things you have said, you've now got protesters in the streets saying things like ‘Nazis go home.’ How are you helping the situation calm down?" Frey basically said he won’t: "What I appreciate about this situation right now is we in Minneapolis are all singing with one accord, which is, one, we are going to stand up for our immigrant community. Two, we are going to keep people safe."
Democrats routinely call illegal immigrants "our neighbors," our "immigrant community," and describe opposing deportation as "keeping people safe." Frey and the others say ICE isn’t stopping crime, it’s engaged in crime, it’s "sowing chaos." Radicals impeding ICE activity aren’t engaged in chaos, but in "keeping people safe." All of that sounds Orwellian.
But don’t call activists like Good "radical." The press pretends she was "just a mom." On NBC’s "Today, reporter Maggie Vespa broke out the "without evidence" claim: "The Trump administration defending his actions, including Vice President JD Vance in a rare appearance in the White House Briefing Room saying without evidence that [Renee] Good was radicalized ... white local officials, including the city's mayor, dispute the Trump administration's narrative."
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Whenever these networks say "without evidence," it’s because they didn’t look. The New York Post reported Good was an anti-ICE "warrior" who sent her son to Southside Family Charter School, a K-5 academy opened in 1972 that from its inception has been "unabashedly dedicated to social justice education."
The broadcast networks didn’t just rant against Trump and ICE on the newscasts. Speaking of Venezuela, ABC "comedian" Jimmy Kimmel brought out a red T-shirt, "They’re trying out a new slogan: ‘DONALD J. TRUMP IS GONNA KILL YOU.’ Pretty good, right?" Moving on to Minneapolis, Kimmel retorted, "This maniac, he isn't just killing people overseas. An ICE agent today shot and killed an unarmed 37-year-old woman during an ICE operation in Minneapolis, who were there under the guise of protecting us."
On ABC’s "The View," they took their loathing of Trump to a new level, scaring their own audience after the Minneapolis shooting. Cohost Whoopi Goldberg asserted, "That young lady could have been anybody in this audience. It doesn't matter what -- forget color. Forget everything. It could have been anybody and if they can do this to her, they can do it to you, too."
You can count on these networks to avoid left-wing rhetorical excess – when they’re not engaged in it. Accounts on X circulated video of a protest in New York’s Foley Square where they chanted "Kristi Noem will Hang!" and "Save a life, kill an ICE!" You might call it the spirit of the post-George Floyd riots of 2020 and the networks won’t disparage it. They’ll use it to announce "growing outrage tonight" against ICE and Trump.