For a few minutes Thursday, a number of establishment media outlets reported the truth by accurately noting that Senate Democrats had blocked a Republican proposal to offer further assistance to small businesses during the coronavirus shutdown.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell attempted to pass a White House-backed $250 billion relief package aimed at helping small businesses Thursday by unanimous consent — as most lawmakers are currently not in Washington.
Republicans sought to increase funding for the Paycheck Protection Program from $350 billion to $600 billion.
Democrats, seeking to add an additional $250 billion for pet projects and double the amount Republicans were seeking, made sure nothing got done.
Similarly to how they held up progress on the $2 trillion Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, Democrats were seeking to take advantage of the urgency in helping small businesses stay afloat during the nationwide shutdown by trying to attach unrelated additional spending to the bill.
When they didn’t receive their special provisions, Democrats blocked the legislation from moving forward.
Astonishingly, establishment media outlets reported the facts and relayed to their readers which party had played politics with the livelihoods of struggling Americans.
Sadly, that all changed when, one by one, four news outlets updated their headlines to portray the failure in helping American workers as a bipartisan one — thus absolving the Democrats of being held accountable for their obstructionism.
CNN covered the congressional news and published a story headlined “Democrats block GOP-led funding boost for small business aid program” at 10:36 a.m. Thursday.
By 11:15 am, the headline on the story was adjusted to read, “Senate at stalemate over more COVID-19 aid after Republicans and Democrats block competing proposals.”
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz shared images of the two CNN headlines on Twitter and called out the network for its quick change in tone. “Gee, it’s almost as if CNN has a partisan agenda,” Cruz wrote.
Gee, it’s almost as if CNN has a partisan agenda.... https://t.co/1KBbvEu3u3
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) April 9, 2020
read more here: https://thefederalistpapers.org/us/cnn-nbc-bloomberg-politico-change-headlines-story-tells-truth-dems
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