Posted on 28 March 2021
ABC News was obviously working as an arm of the Biden administration during Sunday’s Good Morning America, as they spewed lies and misinformation about Republican efforts to increase the integrity of our elections. Despite claiming the GOP were targeting “black voters who helped him win there in Georgia,” the network refused to explain exactly how the law and other proposed bills would do that. Instead, they used broad stroke fear-mongering in an attempt to poison the GOP to viewers.
“President Biden is clearly fired up, upset about this new law in Georgia. His team and other critics say that black voters who helped him win there in Georgia, helped him get here to the White House are being targeted with this new law and would be impacted the very most,” announced White House correspondent MaryAlice Parks.
It’s worth noting that Parks had a big smile on her face when she talked about Biden’s Georgia win.
Park started the video portion of her report by noting the protests in Georgia and decrying the “treatment of state representative Park Cannon who was arrested in the statehouse as the governor signed the bill into law.” While Parks was trying to suggest Cannon’s arrest was because of the bill, the reality was she was creating a disturbance by beating on the door to Governor Brian Kemp’s (R) office while the signing ceremony was underway.
Without going into any detail, Parks made generalized comments about the law and didn’t care to explain how they achieved her initial claim of targeting Biden’s black voters:
The law limits ballot drop boxes, adds new requirements for mail-in voting, and makes it a crime for anyone other than a poll worker to offer food and water to voters waiting in line. President Biden saying the Department of Justice is looking into it, calling the law pushed for by Republicans un-American!
Of course, she followed that up with a soundbite of Biden ridiculously claiming the law “makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle.”
In reality, Democrats and their pals in the liberal media had been claiming for years that Georgia was a hotbed of voter suppression efforts by Republicans, including during the Democratic primaries of 2020. Those lies persisted despite high and record turnout over multiple elections. Those claims evaporated after Biden won, but were being renewed.
But co-anchor Dan Harris and chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl didn’t care about the facts as they continued to push the lies.
“You and I were talking yesterday on e-mail, and you were making the case that this issue of how we run elections in America, in other words, how we function as a democracy, may be the toughest and most important challenge that Joe Biden faces,” Harris said.
Karl falsely insisted that Republicans wanted to make it “harder to vote” with the goal of “bring down voter turnout.” And though he called it partisan, Karl touted the efforts of congressional Democrats to take away the states’ rights to run their elections and nationalize it:
And in the Congress, you have this effort to combat that by making it dramatically easier to vote. By having the federal government mandate that states have dramatically expanded mail-in voting and early voting. Those efforts are almost entirely partisan.
Harris pushed the notion that Biden would be our savior, but Karl wasn’t sure how he could.
ABC’s lies and smears against the GOP on voting rights were made possible because of lucrative sponsorships from Pfizer and GEICO, which got a special shout out when they went to break. Their contact information is linked so you can tell them about the biased news they fund.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s World News Tonight
March 28, 2021
8:06:20 a.m. Eastern
WHIT JOHNSON: We move on to politics and two major battles for the Biden White House that they're facing. The Republican push for more voting restrictions and the rise in migrants trying to cross the border. ABC's MaryAlice Parks is at the White House with the latest. MaryAlice, good morning.
MARYALICE PARKS: Whit, good morning. President Biden is clearly fired up, upset about this new law in Georgia. His team and other critics say that black voters who helped him win there in Georgia, helped him get here to the White House are being targeted with this new law and would be impacted the very most.
[Cuts to video]
This weekend, tensions high on the streets in Georgia.
[Protesters chanting]
PARKS: Protests over the state's new elections law, as well as the treatment of state representative Park Cannon who was arrested in the statehouse as the governor signed the bill into law. Cannon's attorney telling me the bill and her arrest, both out of line.
GERALD GRIGGS (attorney for Cannon): The rest of the country needs to take a very strong look at the tactics that are being used in Georgia. The justice department needs to get involved.
PARKS: But Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger, who defended the state's election results in the face of conspiracy theories from former President Trump, also defending the changes.
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER (Georgia SoS): And so, we have to really make sure we have honest and fair elections with appropriate balances of accessibility vs security. And that's what we're working on.
PARKS: The law limits ballot drop boxes, adds new requirements for mail-in voting, and makes it a crime for anyone other than a poll worker to offer food and water to voters waiting in line. President Biden saying the Department of Justice is looking into it, calling the law pushed for by Republicans un-American!
PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN: The Republican voters I know find this despicable. Republican voters. [Transition] It is the most pernicious thing. This makes Jim Crow look like Jim Eagle. I mean, this is gigantic, what they're trying to do, and it cannot be sustained.
(…)
8:10:26 a.m. Eastern
DAN HARRIS: Let me loop back to the situation we're seeing in Georgia with these voting restrictions. You and I were talking yesterday on email, and you were making the case that this issue of how we run elections in America, in other words, how we function as a democracy, may be the toughest and most important challenge that Joe Biden faces. Why?
JONATHAN KARL: Well, well look. You have these dueling efforts going on. You have the Republicans who, quite frankly, with are looking at ways across the country – 43 different states you have – Not all of them will succeed, but efforts to make it essentially harder to vote. To bring down voter turnout will be the effect. Those are almost entirely partisan efforts, Republican-only efforts.
And in the Congress, you have this effort to combat that by making it dramatically easier to vote. By having the federal government mandate that states have dramatically expanded mail-in voting and early voting. Those efforts are almost entirely partisan.
Dan, if there's one thing in the country that's got to be bipartisan, it's the way we conduct our elections. You got to have faith in the system and right now the two sides are in entirely different directions.
HARRIS: Yeah, but I think everybody can agree on that, but how can Joe Biden fix it?
KARL: Well, you know, Biden’s the one who campaigned on trying to bring the country together and reaching out to Republicans. In a way, he's been able to do that on some of the issues he's facing. This is his biggest challenge. How he does it, you know, I don't know, but I'm saying that if he cannot find a way to get Republicans and Democrats both to have faith in the way we conduct our elections, the other stuff is much harder to pull off.
HARRIS: It’s an existential issue.
(…)