Fox News was the only channel to cover the arrest of an armed man who traveled from California to kill Kavanaugh.
Welcome back to “Forgotten Fact-Checks,” a weekly column produced by National Review’s News Desk. This week, we recap the mainstream media’s silence on the foiled assassination attempt against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, highlight the threat a single praying coach poses to American democracy, and hit more media misses.
Media Look Away from Kavanaugh Attempted Assassination Plot
A California man traveled to the Maryland home of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh last week with the intent to murder the conservative justice, and if you haven’t been tuned into explicitly conservative media, there’s a legitimate chance that this is the first time you’re hearing about it.
Many news outlets and Democratic lawmakers carried on, business as usual, even after news broke that police detained 26-year-old Nicholas John Roske early Wednesday morning after he exited a taxi in front of Kavanaugh’s home in Maryland wearing black clothes, according to a criminal complaint. The man told authorities he called 911 because he was having suicidal thoughts. He told a dispatcher he had come “from California to kill a specific” Supreme Court justice, the affidavit said.
Authorities found a Glock 17 handgun with two magazines and ammunition, a tactical knife, pepper spray, zip ties, a hammer, a screwdriver, and other gear in Roske’s backpack.
Roske told authorities that he was motivated by the leaked majority draft opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization that would overturn Roe v. Wade. He said he was contemplating “how to give his life purpose” when he decided to kill Kavanaugh after finding his address on the Internet, according to the complaint. (The pro-abortion group Ruth Sent Us created a website to advertise the home addresses of the Court’s conservative justices, though it’s unclear exactly where online Roske found the address.)
Yet just days later, the only Sunday talk show to mention the foiled assassination plot was Fox News Sunday, according to TVEyes. ABC’s This Week, NBC’s Meet The Press, CBS’s Face the Nation, and CNN’s State of the Union all failed to cover the murder plot at all:
How the Sunday shows covered the attempted assassination of Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh via TVEyes.
# of mentions of "Kavanaugh":
ABC's This Week: 0 mentions
NBC's Meet The Press: 0 mentions
CBS's Face The Nation: 0 mentions
CNN SOTU: 0 mentions
Fox News Sunday covered— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 12, 2022
Instead, CNN chose to turn its attention to the Democrats’ continued attempt to make news out of the January 6 Capitol riot, which occurred 17 months ago. The Sunday show covered the House select committee on the January 6 Capitol riot’s hearings, the first of which happened on Thursday and offered little-to-no new information.
This Week showed similarly twisted news judgment in running a fluffy LGBT Pride month segment on White House press secretary Karine Jean Pierre, who is a lesbian, rather than covering the attempted murder of a Supreme Court justice:
Meanwhile on CNN: https://t.co/CzIlvInbLK
— Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) June 12, 2022
Even on the same day the near-attack occurred, the story was seemingly absent from the online homepages of ABC News and the New York Times:
Someone attempted to assassinate a Supreme Court justice today, but you’d hardly know it if you happen to get your news from @nytimes or @abcnews pic.twitter.com/WDt8L0kMg1
— Alexandra DeSanctis Marr (@xan_desanctis) June 8, 2022
The New York Times also buried the news in its print edition, relegating its only article on the incident to page A20 of Thursday’s paper. Stories that made the cut for the front page of the Thursday Times included a primer on the first primetime January 6 committee hearing and a piece on returning to office spaces to work after the Covid-19 pandemic.
On page 20, the story was apparently not even important enough to sit above the story, “New York A.G. Set to Question Three Trumps Under Oath.”
Readers who persevere and hunt down the story might be surprised to see the headline features no mention of Roske’s stated intention to murder the justice, instead reading “Man With Pistol, Crowbar And Zip Ties Is Arrested Near Kavanaugh’s Home.”
USA Today similarly did not include a single story on the assassination attempt in its print edition on Thursday and Politico Playbook also failed to mention the news.
Roske’s arrest comes two years after Senate majority leader Chuck Schumer first warned that Justice Neil Gorsuch and Kavanaugh would “reap the whirlwind” and “pay the price” if they were to vote to alter Supreme Court doctrine on abortion despite both men having lifetime appointments and therefore not being subject to political costs.
But even as Democrats have spent 17 months pinning the blame on former President Trump for the January 6 insurrection, saying his words encouraged violence, they are quick to excuse members of their own party for doing the same:
On the steps of the Supreme Court, Chuck Schumer said of Justices Gorsuch and Kavanaugh: "You have released the whirlwind and you will pay the price. You won't know what hit you."
Democrat Sen. Chris Coons says it's okay because Schumer was "upset and alarmed." pic.twitter.com/p3dJXRzO6U
— RNC Research (@RNCResearch) June 12, 2022
While the attempted attack has brought renewed pressure upon House Democrats to pass a bill to enhance security protections for the justices, House speaker Nancy Pelosi grew cross last week when she was pressed on the House having stalled the bill after its passage in the Senate last month.
“There will be a bill but nobody is in danger over the weekend because of us not having a bill,” Pelosi said.
Headline Fail of the Week
Greg Bishop and the editorial team at Sports Illustrated must not think much of the near 250 year-old experiment that is this country.
“When Faith and Football Teamed Up Against American Democracy” reads the headline of the publication’s daily online cover story, which describes the threat posed by high school football coach Joe Kennedy, who dares to drop to one knee and pray after games. Among Bishop’s apparently deep-seated fears are the “impressionable teenagers” that watch him and the “powerful right-wing machine” and “white Christian nationalists” that back him.
Kennedy’s ask, that he be allowed to pray by himself after games without threat of having his employment terminated, threatens “a bedrock of American democracy: the separation of church and state” per Bishop, who devoted thousands of words to purportedly defending said bedrock without the foggiest understanding of what it is.
Media Misses
–Washington Post reporter Taylor Lorenz showed she’s still stuck in 2020, admonishing Keith Edwards for not wearing a mask on a plane “in the middle of a pandemic.”
Do you prefer aisle or window 🧐 pic.twitter.com/GuuYVqG1JN
— Keith Edwards (@keithedwards) June 10, 2022
-Twitter’s “trending news” section made itself an effective megaphone for gender ideologues last week with its top story claiming that “experts” say “gender-affirming guidance for prepubescent children is noninvasive.”
Top Twitter story pic.twitter.com/JMb6M1XZzz
— David Harsanyi (@davidharsanyi) June 11, 2022
-MSNBC millionaire Mehdi Hasan is here to not-so-patiently explain that this economy is working for you.
