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The massive billion-dollar fraud allegedly committed by Somalis in Minnesota is still being submerged by the broadcast networks in favor of performative outrage at President Donald Trump’s statements at public events disparaging the Somalis and Somalia.
Early in the week, Curtis Houck at NewsBusters found ABC and NBC and only touched on the Minnesota fraud in 21% of their Somali coverage. The vast majority of verbiage was negative evaluations of Trump. Add in CBS, and the fraud fraction went up to 31%, in part because “Face The Nation” host Margaret Brennan interviewed Minnesota Democrat Rep. Ilhan Omar about it.
First, Brennan dragged out the “no evidence” schtick with Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent about taxpayer money ending up with the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab: “you have no evidence of that money being used to fuel terrorism, which is what some conservative writers are alleging?” Bessent said a probe is ongoing, but tagged Omar: “Representative Omar tried to downplay it … said … it was very tough to know how this money should be used. She was gaslighting the American people.”
When Omar came on set, Brennan raised Bessent’s comments to her: “He alleged that people who were tied to you or your campaign were involved in this broad, brazen scheme to rip off the Minnesota state welfare system. Do you want to respond to that? Do you know what he is referring to?” Omar lied, and said “I really don’t, and I don’t think the secretary himself understands what he’s referring to.”
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Brennan could have easily found the New York Post report that underlined the connections, including Salim Ahmed Said, the co-owner of Safari Restaurant, where Omar held her 2018 congressional victory party. Said was found guilty in August of stealing over $12 million in COVID-19 funds. In 2020, Omar appeared on video at Safari to praise the (fraudulent) feeding program.
Then consider that Guhaad Hashi Said worked on Omar’s 2018 and 2020 campaigns overseeing Somali voter turnout. He also pleaded guilty in August to running a fake food site called Advance Youth Athletic Development, where he falsely claimed to serve 5,000 meals a day and pocketed $3.2 million out of the food program.
Why can’t Brennan use Google and get prepared? Can she lament “no evidence” on the Omar story as she refused to look for any?
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Somalia coverage boomed again when Trump held a rally in Pennsylvania where he mocked what he called “s—hole countries.” On ABC, Mary Bruce claimed “for over 90 minutes last night, his remarks repeatedly veered off topic and into vicious attacks.” Then she repeated: “Trump launched vicious attacks against Somali immigrants, calling them lazy and garbage and continuing to go after Democratic Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, who is a naturalized U.S. citizen” in his “anti-immigrant tirade.”
On ABC’s “The View,” Joy Behar took after Trump joking we should import a few people from Norway instead of Somalia: “Can we just talk for a second about the blatant racism, though? What’s the difference between Somalia and Norway? Hello. I mean, it’s so obvious that that is what it is and he doesn’t even try to cover it.”
She, like most leftists, could only think about race, and not about how Norway and Somalia might compare on the success meter as countries. Liberals argue you’re not allowed to bash a country, but when you question migrants entering en masse, they need to stay because they came from a very bad place.
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“CBS Evening News” reporter Nancy Cordes reported his remarks, and lined up Virginia Democrat Sen. Mark Warner to call Trump “racist.” GOP Speaker Mike Johnson said he wouldn’t use these terms, but Trump is expressing his frustration at immigrants refusing to assimilate.
On the “PBS News Hour,” their online headline was “Trump’s affordability speech turns into a rant against immigrants.” Co-anchor Amna Nawaz ran a clip of Trump, and then pressed Republican Tiffany Smiley: “Tiffany, he also called other countries, including Afghanistan and Somalia, hellholes. This was billed as a speech about affordability. Is this what voters want to be hearing about right now?” In this case, it was unusual that PBS allowed a Republican to celebrate how Trump secured the border as he promised. Nawaz then brought on Democrat Ameshia Cross to denounce Trump as a segregationist.
“Objective” reporters use words like “rant” and “tirade” to describe Trump speeches. But when former President Joe Biden went to Philadelphia in 2022 and launched a rant against equality and democracy being under threat by “MAGA extremists,” they celebrated his passion. Ranting against Trump sounds like idealism to their ears.
By contrast, when Trump strikes idealistic notes about America, they refuse to depart from their ongoing cartoon that everything he says can be painted as the immature outbursts of a racist bully on steroids.
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