This rant by Steve Schmidt may well offend those who blame him and others for the political crisis in which we find ourselves. But even so, what he says is true:
Do you want to know why this is happening? Here’s CNN’s Oliver Darcy in the Reliable Sources newsletter:
I tuned into One America News — the tiny far-right channel that has hyped the Big Lie the most — in the late-afternoon to see how the report was being covered. For a while, the channel’s hosts and correspondents were actually off-air, choosing instead to broadcast the presentation delivered by the Cyber Ninjas to the GOP-led Arizona Senate. While the report confirmed Biden won, it also contained a lot of misinfo about how the election was conducted.
As NYT reported, “In the hourslong presentation before the State Senate the review officials did not focus on the numbers showing Mr. Biden’s victory but instead presented a blizzard of hypotheticals, none verified, most hinting darkly at a tainted election.” Ken Matta, information security officer for Arizona Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, said that “probably 90% of the inflammatory information presented” was “inaccurate.”
OAN carried it all.
Afterward, OAN host Shane Althaus said (with a straight face) that there was “no clear indication that the election results in Maricopa County will be overturned.” But he told the audience that “several issues” with the election were found. That was the most reality-based reporting on OAN that I saw. From there, he brought in host Christina Bobb, who has worked with the Trump team to overturn the election. Bobb said the report showed “there is a lot of discrepancies.” She suggested there were “indications of fraud” and added that “there is a lot of explaining to do.”
Elsewhere in MAGA Media
Elsewhere in right-wing media, things were not much better. Newsmax host Carl Higbe said on-air, “The numbers aren’t adding up to what they originally certified. That is a problem to me.” And fringe sites like The Gateway Pundit hyped all the nonsense the Cyber Ninjas circulated during their misinfo-soaked presentation. Bottom line: The Big Lie is still popular in many corners of right-wing media, and they are portraying this report as damning evidence in support of their case…
Over on Fox…
One right-wing media outlet did report the results of the Arizona report. Fox News anchor Bret Baier said on his show that the review of votes confirmed Biden’s win. But Baier only spent a weak 30 seconds of his program on the news. And I could not find any other mention of it on Fox throughout the day. In fact, I couldn’t even find a story on the outlet’s website…