{"id":2336213,"date":"2024-09-03T15:47:01","date_gmt":"2024-09-03T19:47:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cbs-news-present-leftists-as-experts-to-smear-opponents\/"},"modified":"2024-09-03T15:51:45","modified_gmt":"2024-09-03T19:51:45","slug":"cbs-news-present-leftists-as-experts-to-smear-opponents","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cbs-news-present-leftists-as-experts-to-smear-opponents\/","title":{"rendered":"CBS News Present Leftists As &#8216;Experts&#8217; To Smear Opponents"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"&quot;\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">18<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Fcbs-news-present-leftists-as-experts-to-smear-opponents%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=2336213&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><p>David Becker, labeled \u200da nonpartisan election\u200b expert \u200bby CBS News, has \u2064accused former President Donald Trump \u2064and X CEO Elon Musk of spreading &#8220;election disinformation.&#8221; He claims \u2063that these individuals, along \u2063with foreign adversaries, are sowing doubt\u200c about the integrity of American elections.\u200d Musk\u200d has responded by calling Becker a liar,\u200c disputing the allegations without specific examples of misinformation. \u200dBecker&#8217;s critiques also extend to new election rules in Georgia designed to\u200c ensure accurate results, which he argues could complicate the certification process. This ongoing discourse \u2062highlights a broader trend in corporate\u2063 media\u200d to challenge \u2063narratives that \u200cmight\u2062 undermine Democratic interests, as evidenced by previous instances where significant stories, like the Hunter Biden laptop saga, were dismissed as misinformation based on claims from\u200d intelligence \u2063officials. The tension between \u200dBecker&#8217;s\u200b claims and the responses\u200d from\u200c Musk reflects the \u200dpolarized \u2064landscape of\u200b election discourse in the U.S.  <\/p>\n<p class=\"readmore\">\n    <button onclick=\"showReadMore()\" id=\"readmorebtn\">Read more&#8230;<\/button>\n<\/p>\n<hr id=\"line\">\n<span id=\"more\"><\/p>\n<div>\n<p>CBS News&rsquo; David Becker &mdash; who is <a href=\"https:\/\/electioninnovation.org\/team\/david-becker\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">falsely billed<\/a> as a nonpartisan election expert &mdash; accused former President Donald Trump and X CEO Elon Musk of spreading &ldquo;election disinformation.&rdquo; While his allegations are unfounded, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/debra-messing-shames-media-waukesha-massacre-was-not-an-accident-dont-minimize-crime\/\" title=\"Debra Messing Shames Media: Waukesha Massacre &#039;Was Not an Accident... Don&#039;t Minimize&#039; Crime\">left-wing corporate media<\/a> has a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/kevin-mccarthy-calls-on-pentagon-to-restore-nsa-general-counsel-michael-ellis-to-active-service\/\" title=\"Kevin McCarthy Calls on Pentagon to Restore NSA General Counsel Michael Ellis to Active Service\">long-standing practice<\/a> of trotting out so-called &ldquo;experts&rdquo; to discredit and undermine their political rivals on any topic they deem to be politically inconvenient for Democrats ahead of the election.<\/p>\n<p>Becker <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/face-the-nation-full-transcript-09-01-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">accused<\/a> Musk of &ldquo;pushing some really inflammatory claims when it comes to voting&rdquo; that are meant to make Americans &ldquo;doubt our elections.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;We&rsquo;re seeing more election disinformation for sure. It&rsquo;s coming from Donald Trump. It&rsquo;s coming from Elon Musk. It&rsquo;s coming from, we know, foreign adversaries like Russia, and Iran, and North Korea and China,&rdquo; Becker said, claiming all the aforementioned parties were working to create doubt about election processes and outcomes.<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;So when you see information on social media in particular, that triggers something within you, that seems to make you angry about the other side, all of us, as sophisticated media consumers, should pause and say, what is &mdash; maybe that anger is the product they&rsquo;re trying to create. Maybe they&rsquo;re getting paid, or they&rsquo;re benefiting from creating that anger in us.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>Musk waded into the conversation, calling Becker &ldquo;a liar through and through.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>&ldquo;The very definition of disinformation,&rdquo; Musk said in a <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/elonmusk\/status\/1830626312181961066\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">post<\/a> on X.<\/p>\n<p>Becker didn&rsquo;t explicitly clarify what so-called &ldquo;misinformation&rdquo; Musk has allegedly spread, though in the recent past Becker has <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/beckerdavidj\/status\/1818259232514318823\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">criticized<\/a> Musk for <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/misinformation\/elon-musk-misleading-election-claims-x-views-report-rcna165599\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">questioning<\/a> whether our elections are secure from illegal immigrants voting. Republicans introduced the SAVE Act to require documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote, which has been blocked by Democrats. Currently in order to register to vote in federal elections, prospective voters simply need to <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/07\/10\/theres-only-one-reason-democrats-oppose-requiring-proof-of-citizenship-to-vote\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">check a box<\/a> affirming they are a citizen &mdash; yes, our &ldquo;secure&rdquo; elections hinge on the honor system.<\/p>\n<p>It&rsquo;s an inconvenient truth, one that Becker tried to dismiss by <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/beckerdavidj\/status\/1818259234154287224\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saying<\/a> in a string of posts on X that &ldquo;voting by non-citizens in federal elections is already illegal.&rdquo;<\/p>\n<p>(Drinking and driving is also illegal, but people die every year in car crashes caused by drunk drivers.)<\/p>\n<p>Becker also <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/09\/02\/left-wing-media-malign-ga-election-rules-in-bid-to-make-certification-nothing-more-than-a-rubber-stamp\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">recently maligned<\/a> new rules passed by the Georgia State Election Board that are aimed at ensuring election results are accurate prior to certification. Becker&rsquo;s commentary is part of the left-wing media&rsquo;s push to discredit the three Republican board members who passed the rules and to silence legitimate concerns in Georgia about the state&rsquo;s election procedures.<\/p>\n<p>Becker suggested, while on CBS News, that the rules would allow single counties to refuse to certify election results, which would in turn delay the state from certifying the results before the deadline. <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/08\/28\/dems-want-ga-county-officials-to-rubber-stamp-elections-no-questions-asked-dnc-suit-says\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Rule<\/a>&nbsp;183-1-12-.12 does not change the certification deadline and notes the 5:00 p.m. certification deadline on the Monday following the election.<\/p>\n<p>But undermining and discrediting election-related information isn&rsquo;t a new strategy for the propaganda press and its Democrat allies.<\/p>\n<p>Ahead of the 2020 election, the New York Post dropped the bombshell Hunter Biden laptop story, which implicated then-candidate Joe Biden in his son&rsquo;s foreign business dealings. But the propaganda press trotted out 51 &ldquo;former senior intelligence officials&rdquo; claiming Hunter Biden&rsquo;s laptop &ldquo;has all the classic earmarks of a Russian information operation,&rdquo; an assertion first touted by Politico&rsquo;s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.com\/news\/2020\/10\/19\/hunter-biden-story-russian-disinfo-430276\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Natasha Bertrand<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>With the stamp of approval from the 51 &ldquo;intelligence officials,&rdquo; the corporate press dismissed the story as Russian propaganda, with NPR&rsquo;s managing editor Terence Samuels notoriously <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/NPRpubliceditor\/status\/1319281101223940096\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">saying<\/a> the outlet would not cover the story because it was a &ldquo;waste&rdquo; of time.<\/p>\n<p>Yet it wasn&rsquo;t just the culmination of political and media pressure that all but silenced the story.<\/p>\n<p>Meta&rsquo;s Facebook infamously throttled the Hunter Biden laptop story in 2020 after treating it as &ldquo;<a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2024\/03\/11\/after-using-russia-lies-to-meddle-in-2016-and-2020-agencies-dust-off-playbook-for-2024\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">potentially misinformation<\/a>.&rdquo; The laptop and its contents were true and were recently <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/hunter-biden-trial-federal-gun-charges-jury-477c0ca9d07afc1a52bd90ef6d2167cb#\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">entered<\/a> into court evidence by federal prosecutors in their trial against the president&rsquo;s son.<\/p>\n<p>A report from the Media Research Center showed that &ldquo;17 percent of Biden voters would not have voted for the Biden-Harris presidential ticket if they had known about at least one of the eight news stories that were suppressed by big tech and mainstream media outlets,&rdquo; my colleague Jordan Boyd <a href=\"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2020\/11\/24\/poll-one-in-six-biden-voters-would-have-changed-their-vote-if-they-had-known-about-scandals-suppressed-by-media\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">reported<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>But the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/cnn-contributor-suggests-democrats-should-focus-their-criticism-on-trump\/\" title=\"CNN contributor suggests Democrats should focus their criticism on Trump\">corporate media&#038;rsquo<\/a>;s efforts were successful: they were able to undermine and discredit politically inconvenient information that would have otherwise damaged their preferred candidate&rsquo;s chances of winning. And now they&rsquo;re back to employing the same strategy.<\/p>\n<hr>\n<p>      Brianna Lyman is an elections correspondent at The Federalist. Brianna graduated from Fordham University with a degree in International Political Economy. Her work has been featured on Newsmax, Fox News, Fox Business and RealClearPolitics. Follow Brianna on X: @briannalyman2<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n<p><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>CBS News&#8217; David Becker, inaccurately presented as a nonpartisan election expert, has accused former President Donald Trump and X CEO Elon Musk of disseminating &#8220;election disinformation.&#8221; These claims lack evidence, yet left-leaning corporate media frequently showcases purported &#8220;experts&#8221; to undermine political opponents on issues that may be inconvenient for Democrats during election periods. Becker specifically criticized Musk for allegedly making provocative statements about voting that could instill doubt in Americans regarding the integrity of elections. He stated, \u201cWe\u2019re seeing more election disinformation for sure,\u201d attributing it to Trump, Musk, and foreign adversaries like Russia and China.<\/p>\n<p>Becker urged consumers of social media to be cautious about information that incites anger towards opposing views, suggesting it might be designed to provoke such reactions. In response, Musk labeled Becker as \u201ca liar through and through\u201d on X. Although Becker did not specify what misinformation he believes Musk has spread, he previously condemned Musk for questioning the security of elections against illegal immigrant voting.<\/p>\n<p>Republicans have proposed the SAVE Act requiring proof of citizenship for voter registration\u2014a measure blocked by Democrats\u2014while current federal regulations only require voters to affirm their citizenship by checking a box. Becker attempted to downplay concerns over non-citizen voting by stating it is already illegal but failed to acknowledge that violations can still occur.<\/p>\n<p>Additionally, Becker criticized new rules from the Georgia State Election Board intended to ensure accurate election results before certification. His comments appear aimed at undermining Republican board members who supported these measures while dismissing valid concerns regarding Georgia&#8217;s electoral processes.<\/p>\n<p>This tactic of discrediting election-related information is not new; prior to the 2020 election, the New York Post revealed damaging details from Hunter Biden&#8217;s laptop implicating then-candidate Joe Biden in his son&#8217;s business dealings. The mainstream media quickly dismissed this story as Russian propaganda after 51 former intelligence officials claimed it bore signs of misinformation.<\/p>\n<p>The corporate press effectively silenced this narrative with support from big tech platforms like Facebook which restricted coverage under claims of potential misinformation. A Media Research Center report indicated that many Biden voters were unaware of critical stories suppressed by major outlets\u2014stories that could have influenced their voting decisions against him.<\/p>\n<p>Ultimately, these strategies demonstrate how corporate media seeks to undermine politically sensitive information detrimental to their favored candidates\u2019 prospects while continuing similar tactics today<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":74,"featured_media":2336214,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screenshot-2024-09-03-at-9.29.09-AM-e1725370275773-1024x576.png","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[546],"tags":[34532,4521,5965,32490],"class_list":["post-2336213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-federalist","tag-cbs-news","tag-experts","tag-leftists","tag-media-bias"],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/thefederalist.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/09\/Screenshot-2024-09-03-at-9.29.09-AM-e1725370275773-1024x576.png","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/74"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2336213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2336213\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2336214"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2336213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2336213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2336213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}