One of the two partisans who were assigned by CBS to moderate this week’s vice presidential debate between GOP candidate JD Vance and Democrat Tim Walz is accused of committing “unethical journalistic malpractice.”
The moderators, Nora O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan, both previously had expressed criticism of President Donald Trump.
Despite this, the network made them the debate moderators, asking questions that would tend to help Walz, and emphasizing Democrat agenda points such as climate change, about which only a few Americans have high concerns.
But it was Brennan’s behavior toward Vance that triggered an editorial in the Washington Examiner that described her behavior.
After Vance detailed how President Joe Biden and Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris “brought in millions of illegal immigrants,” some of whom are overwhelming schools and hospitals and driving up housing prices, Brennan jumped in to editorialize, asserting, “Just to clarify for our viewers, Springfield, Ohio, does have a large number of Haitian migrants who have legal status — temporary protected status.”
Vance responded, “Margaret, the rules were that you guys weren’t going to fact-check, and since you’re fact-checking me, I think it’s important to say what’s actually going on.” He then gave a detailed and accurate explanation of how Biden and Harris created a smartphone app called the CBP One app that lets illegal immigrants fly into the United States and receive temporary “parole” status that expires in two years.
“That is the facilitation of illegal immigration, Margaret,” Vance explained, “by our own leadership. And Kamala Harris opened up that pathway.” Instead of allowing Walz to respond, Brennan cut Vance’s microphone and moved on to the next question.
This was unethical journalistic malpractice. She falsely or misleadingly fact-checked the Republican’s comments and then, instead of facilitating a proper airing of the issue, silenced the candidate who was making them and the Democrat look ignorant and dishonest.
Vance was right. The Biden-Harris administration has abused parole authority to create a shadow system alongside the congressionally approved legal system. There is nothing in statute that gives a president power to mass-parole 30,000 immigrants a month into the U.S.
The editorial pointed out that Brennan and O’Donnell, in fact, failed to follow the rules that had been set up for the debate.
“And Vance made them pay,” the commentary said. “In the process, he exposed how the Biden-Harris administration is purposefully dismantling the dividing line between legal and illegal immigration.”
In fact, the publication documented, “The parole statute allows parole only for ‘urgent humanitarian reasons or significant public benefit,’ and only on a case-by-case basis, and it prescribes that ‘when the purposes of such parole shall have been served,’ the immigrant shall be returned to custody for deportation. So an immigrant suffering from dehydration could be paroled into the country for medical care, for example, but after treatment should be dealt with like any other illegal immigrant.”
That limited application, the Examiner warned, “was never intended to be a new ‘legal pathway’ as Biden and Harris have made it.”
“Should the executive branch abuse humanitarian protections in the immigration code to create a parallel quasi-legal system to import millions of otherwise illegal immigrants into the country every year, overwhelming schools and hospitals and driving up the price of housing? Of course not. But that is what Biden and Harris have done. According to all polls, the public is tired of it.”
