If a U.S. Senate confirmation hearing happens and cable news doesn’t cover it, does it still make a sound?
I mean, of course, it does. Lots of confirmation hearings aren’t televised at all, including several held on Wednesday, Jan. 15, when a bunch of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees sat for hearings. But what about the high-profile confirmation hearing of Pam Bondi, Trump’s pick for U.S. Attorney General, before the Senate Judiciary Committee?
It wasn’t the free-for-all that the Senate Armed Forces Committee hearing for Pete Hegseth was on Tuesday, but there were some contentious moments, perhaps the most dramatic of which was simply silence.
Fox News, CNN and MSNBC cut away from the Bondi hearing
But a sizable chunk of it didn’t get covered by TV networks at all. That’s because, shortly before a break in the hearing, CNN broke in to announce that a hostage and ceasefire deal between Hamas and Israel had been worked out; MSNBC and Fox News soon jumped in with coverage as soon as they confirmed the story.
This is not a complaint. The ceasefire is a generational story; the networks did what they should have done (and Fox News came back to hearing coverage toward the end of the session). The hearing was important, of course, as Democratic senators tried to get Bondi on the record about her office’s independence from any untoward influence from Trump, and Republicans used their time to blast Joe Biden’s Department of Justice or bloviate a bit. Sen. Mike Lee may still be talking, for all I know. Be thankful for small favors and breaking news.
In some ways, it was business as usual. When the Bondi hearing was done, Fox News trotted out legal analyst Jonathan Turley to praise Bondi’s appearance and attack Democrats. For instance, he called Sen. Adam Schiff “really, truly otherworldly. This is the happiest of lawfare warriors demanding to know if she would turn on her enemies. It was like having Capt. Jack Sparrow objecting and asking will you comply with the law of the seas.”
Good line, but just another day at the office for these folks.
Pam Bondi’s silence on the 2020 election spoke volumes
One of the most dramatic moments was televised. For the first round of questions, Bondi dodged several that would have put her crossways with Trump, including answering who won the 2020 election. Trump’s false claims that he did have bedeviled elections ever since. The farthest Bondi would go is to say that she accepts the results, that Biden is the president; she wouldn’t be pinned down as to how that happened.
“We want an Attorney General who bases decisions on facts,” Sen. Mazie Hirono, a Democrat from Hawaii, told Bondi. “So I want to ask you a factual question: Who won the 2020 presidential election?”
“Joe Biden is the President of the United States,” Bondi said.
She can say that Trump won the 2024 election, Hirono said. “I may not like it, but I can say it. You cannot say who won the 2020 presidential election. It’s disturbing that you can’t give voice to that fact.”
Silence from Bondi. Silence that spoke volumes. Of course, if she had said Biden won the election fairly, Trump himself probably would have appeared out of the woodwork and sent her packing.
But most viewers probably didn’t see Bondi questioned about threats against the media simply for reporting, as Kash Patel, Trump’s pick for director of the FBI has suggested he would do. “Going after the media just because they are the media is wrong, of course,” she said.
Or whether there was any reason to investigate Liz Chaney, a former Republican member of Congress highly critical of Trump and a member of the Jan. 6 Committee, members of which he has threatened. “You seem reluctant to answer a simple question,” Schiff said. “Are you aware of any factual basis to investigate Liz Cheney?”
“Senator, that’s a hypothetical, and I’m not going to answer it,” Bondi said. “We’re all so worried about Liz Cheney,” she adds sarcastically. “You know what we should be worried about, senator? The crime rate in California is through the roof.”
Spicy.
Adam Schiff and Alex Padilla clashed with Bondi
Probably the most contentious exchange took place between Bondi and Sen. Alex Padilla, a Democrat from California. He grilled her on claims she has made about voting irregularities in Pennsylvania and asked her if she had evidence. He wanted a yes or no answer; she wasn’t going to get pinned down, so she started in with a longer answer that began with her saying she was sorry about the fires in California. Padilla interrupted her, and it went back and forth for a bit.
“You cut me off when I was speaking,” Bondi said, adding, “I’m not going to be bullied by you, Sen. Padilla. I guess you didn’t want to hear my answer about Pennsylvania.”
Pretty dramatic stuff, for what that’s worth. So, how did I see it if networks were covering the ceasefire? On various media sites streaming it. The internet, man. I hear it’s the wave of the future.
More seriously, the information is usually somewhere if you want to find it. Fox News, CNN and MSNBC cut away because they should have. That’s how it is right now and how it’s going to be for the foreseeable future. No one can keep up with all of it, though that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Wednesday was a reminder that now more than ever, no matter how big the story, a bigger one can come along at any time.
‘Mind-boggling’: Fox News and CNN react to nutso Pete Hegseth hearing
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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Why Fox News, CNN cut away from Pam Bondi hearing | Opinion
