In a report on Democratic grilling of Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin over Donald Trump’s proposed cuts to Social Security, Fox News correspondent Mike Emanuel whitewashed them by referring to Social Security as “a popular entitlement program” instead of the social safety net it actually is.
Fox News anchor Bret Baier introduced the report by saying that Trump’s budget is “a hard sell” to Congressional Democrats. In reality, it’s dead on arrival.
Emanuel then began:
It’s budget season on Capitol Hill which in this political environment means it is a target for attack. A Senate Democrat pressed the Treasury secretary this afternoon on a popular entitlement program.
The clip that followed made it clear that the “popular entitlement program” Emanuel referred to is Social Security. Describing Social Security as an “entitlement program” suggests that it’s some kind of welfare program people feel entitled to. But while the proposed cuts do not affect retirees’ income, they would cut about $45 billion in spending for disabled children and adults, i.e. the neediest among us.
As we noted earlier this week, it has been the Republican plan to expand the deficit via tax cuts, then fear monger about the deficit and demand spending cuts, especially to Social Security.
Oh, and his closing of the report could have been written by the RNC. We saw a clip of Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell saying the deficit “has been a persistent problem, no matter who’s been in power. There’s no question that the deficit has increased dramatically.” Emanuel didn’t mention the role of Trump’s tax cuts in the problem nor the promise that they would pay for themselves.
Instead, Emanuel said, “Key Democrats say the size of the debt does not poll well so it’s not a potent political issue. But with the nation’s debt more than $22 trillion and counting, the risk is it becoming an economic crisis at some point.”
You can see this latest example of Fox’s “straight news” report promoting Republican talking points below, from the February 12, 2020 Special Report.
Published with permission of NewsHounds
