Psyops On The Sunday Shows!

We watch so you never have to.

Part of keeping up with the news and then watching the Sunday shows is that you start to see the propaganda code in our political matrix.

Follow us as we do our best impersonation of Lawrence Fishburne’s Morpheus and “show you how deep the rabbit hole goes.” This week, at least.

Ya’ know, before conservatives ruined it by taking the wrong lessons from a trans allegory.

Scott Bessent

We’ve already covered some of the most ridiculously idiotic shit Bessent said on ABC’s This Week here, so we are gonna focus on what he said on his other two Sunday show appearances.

On NBC’s Meet The Press, host Kristen Welker pushed Bessent on the new 10 percent tariffs Donald Trump announced this week after Ontario aired an ad featuring real 1987 footage of Ronald Reagan explaining why tariffs are bad, which hurt Trump’s feelings.

Bessent’s defense was not very compelling or sensical.

BESSENT: Well, Kristen, let’s – let’s think about this. This is a kind of propaganda against U.S. citizens. You know, it’s psyops.

Is it, though? Because if playing footage of and quoting Republicans being hypocritical liars is a “psyops,” this very weekly rundown would qualify as an MKUltra program.

Welker asked Bessent for more details on whether these new Canadian tariffs would be on all their goods, or which select goods they would apply for, but he did not know.

Welker then did some “psyops” of her own by playing a clip of Trump promising to bring the price of groceries “way down.” But after she listed a number of items like coffee, beef and bacon whose prices are actually rising, Bessent got a little pissy with Welker and tried to shift the goalposts.

BESSENT: Kristen, it’s unfortunate, as much as I like you, you like to cherrypick so, you know, when we came in, it was “egg-flation, egg-flation, egg-flation.” You know, egg prices are down.

It wasn’t “inflation”, it was “egg-flation. That’s what you meant to say!

Bessent took a similar tone to a similar question on CBS from Face The Nation host Margaret Brennan — more on her in a bit — while trying the strategy every spouse tries when they can’t win an argument.

BESSENT: You listed the things that are up, but we’re seeing plenty of things that are down.

Why does everyone always point out the things they suck at instead of the things they’re so great at, Margaret?

Back on Meet The Press, before the interview ended Bessent was asked about the destruction of the East Wing of the White House to make way for Trump’s gaudy ballroom. Welker played a clip of Trump promising they would not touch the original White House structure, and she asked Bessent why Trump didn’t tell the public his real intentions. While Bessent tried all the old talking points and false equivalences we’ve all heard about previous White House renovations, he added a new one we had to note.

BESSENT: Well, again, I think this was a judgment call on the president. The president is a master builder […] And I don’t know. I assume that maybe parts of the East Wing could have been asbestos, could have been mold, could have not fit with the design.

A MASTER BUILDER!

Here is a video of Trump loving asbestos while you catch your breath laughing at the suggestion that he is a MASTER BUILDER.

Arnold Schwarzenegger

Former California Republican governor and aging Terminator Arnold Schwarzenegger appeared on CNN’s State Of The Union to criticize California’s redistricting effort.

Current California Governor Gavin Newsom is leading an effort to redistrict the state’s congressional maps, after Texas redrew its maps to steal five Democratic house seats, to give Trump and the GOP even more power. While Schwarzenegger’s reasoning sounds fair, it strikes us as a bit Pollyanna-ish.

SCHWARZENEGGER: Texas started it. They did something terribly wrong. And then, all of a sudden, California says, well, then we have to do something terribly wrong. And then now other states are jumping in. And now this is spreading like wildfire all over the country. […] Thing is that you cannot cheat your way out of it. What they should do is, what the Democrats should do is, they should outperform Trump.

The problem with that, Governator, is that in many places it’s the case that it’s already rigged against Democrats, so that even when Democrats turn out more voters, Republicans still manage to gain seats! Democrats have tried to pass voting rights and national fair redistricting laws, but you cannot get to that point if we are fighting with our fists while the GOP uses laser blasters.

If anyone should understand the need to improvise to defeat a stronger and more ruthless enemy, it should be the guy who took down a predator.

Margaret Brennan

Speaking of gerrymandering, we conclude with Margaret Brennan on CBS’s Face The Nation, particularly the end of her interview with House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

When Jeffries brought up the topic of gerrymandering and election denial, Brennan’s attempt to both sides the issue sounded less like CBS News and more like OAN.

BRENNAN: You said Democrats – “there are no election deniers on our side of the aisle.” You said that back in January. But recently you’ve been using the term “rigged elections” in reference the upcoming midterms. Democrats were appalled when President Trump used language like that. How do you justify using that now? Doesn’t that undermine faith for voters you need to show up?

Ahem, no. Because voters can understand the difference between denying the results of a fair election and the GOP’s effort to change the rules to cheat and steal elections. This “both sides” argument would be laughable if made by a terrible op-ed writer or some journalistically bankrupt outlet.

Oh, right.

Guess we didn’t have to wait long for the “Bari Weiss Effect” to be noticed at CBS News.

Have a week.

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