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In recent days, the Trump administration has amped up efforts to have CNN invite Trump senior adviser Stephen Miller on its airwaves, but the network continues to decline. Why is that?
After all, Miller is one of the best guests any cable or broadcast news outlet can book these days: He is unfiltered, unapologetic, prepared, and passionate — a rare combination in a world of hyperbolic, loud, or sleep-inducing guests. Instead, CNN might as well be called the Crockett News Network at this point, because the Democratic Texas lawmaker who never seems to actually work is on their airwaves more than any politician.
Now, it’s not as if Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-TX), who represents the Dallas area for now, until future redistricting essentially turns her seat into a Trump stronghold, didn’t make news this week after she announced her run for Senate. CNN’s problem, along with MS Now and others, is that she is not a serious person and certainly is not a serious threat to actually win statewide in Texas.
Recent polling shows that no matter who her GOP opponent is, Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton, or Rep. Wesley Hunt (R-TX), she will lose by double digits. Easily.
And it may be because of statements such as this during an appearance on The Black Lawyers Podcast, after the conversation turned to black people not having to pay taxes.
“I don’t know. … That’s not necessarily a bad idea,” she said. “But I’d have to think through it a lot. One of the things they propose is black folk not have to pay taxes for a certain amount of time because, then again, that puts money back in your pocket.”
So if we’re following along, it’s not necessarily a bad idea to exempt one race of people from paying taxes. In other words, if you’re white or Asian or Hispanic or any other race, you aren’t afforded the same courtesy.
Because that isn’t racist or anything.
After giving it some thought, Crockett backtracked in the same interview. Well, kind of.
“If you do the no-tax thing, for people that are already, say, struggling and aren’t really paying taxes in the first place, it doesn’t really … but I think that we first need to do a study, we need to be very thoughtful,” she said.
Yes, a study. The same kind of study Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) conducted in his state to see if handing out billions in reparations for slavery to black citizens was a good idea. Of course, California was never a slave state to begin with, but with his eyes always on the prize, the presidency, panderers gotta pander.
Crockett is also the same freshman congressman who mocked a man in a wheelchair, Gov. Greg Abbott (R-TX), by calling him “Governor Hot Wheels.” She called for Elon Musk to be “taken out” during a time of rising political violence.
This is also a person who celebrated Jay Jones winning the Virginia attorney general race last month. Jones, of course, fantasized in 2022 texts about putting “two bullets” into then-Virginia House Speaker Todd Gilbert, a Republican, while also hoping that his two very young children died in their mother’s arms because they are “little fascists.” Jones also promised to “piss on the graves” of dead Republicans.
“I just appreciated that the Democrats got rid of the purity test,” Crockett told Roland Martin in November. “I was very excited to see that he was able to pull off the win because it seems like people did not get caught up in the distractions.”
Distractions? This is a homicidal maniac who wished for the death of little children.
And of course, Crockett always plays the race card from the bottom of the deck. Here she is this week with fellow racist and disgraced former MS Now host Joy Reid talking about a rally held by Trump in Pennsylvania on Tuesday:
Reid: “It was giving a Klan rally.”
Crockett: “I think you summarized it.”
A perfect combo for a duo podcast after Crockett gets destroyed in her Senate race. But in the meantime, the TV and podcast bookings will continue to pour in because it’s exactly this kind of rhetoric that gets rewarded by liberal legacy media.
They see, for example, that Crockett has more than 2 million followers on Instagram alone and therefore believe it will transfer over to TV ratings — it doesn’t. Meanwhile, leaders on Capitol Hill with more experience and greater stature get fewer invites.
Take Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA). His interviews are measured, and common sense is generally the theme. Fetterman has met with Trump and has called on his party to stop using inflammatory language against the administration and the voters who support it.
“I’m the only Democrat in my family,” he shared during a NewsNation town hall recently. “I grew up in a conservative part of Pennsylvania. I would never compare anybody, anybody to Hitler, and those things.”
“And if you want a Democrat that’s going to call people Nazis or fascists or all these kinds of things, well, I am not going to be that guy. … I happen to believe the truth, regardless if it’s the Republican or the Democratic voice,” he also told Fox News’s Maria Bartiromo last month.
But CNN and MS Now have essentially stopped calling Fetterman to appear on their respective networks. It’s been more than one month since he appeared on CNN, while Crockett has appeared multiple times in that same stretch. As for MS Now, Fetterman also hasn’t appeared there in more than a month and only twice in the past nine months, which is laps behind a cartoon character such as Crockett.
Know this: Without social media, Crockett is just another young, brash lawmaker who would like not to be noticed by national outlets. Overall, there are 435 representatives and 100 senators. Very few break through to get free media attention on any substantial level.
But apps such as X, TikTok, and Instagram have changed the game. In 2025, Crockett can speak in Congress and make outlandish statements such as the time she accused Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Lee Zeldin of taking money from “Jeffery Epstein.” The clip quickly goes viral, and before you know it, there she is next to Kaitlan Collins on a set in CNN’s Washington bureau.
Of course, Zeldin took a donation from Dr. Jeffery Epstein, who is not the pedophile monster Jeffery Epstein. Collins asked her about it in a kid-gloved interview on CNN.
“I wasn’t trying to mislead people,” Crockett said with almost zero pushback. “I said ‘a’ Jeffery Epstein.
Uh-huh. Not misleading at all.
Other Democratic members of Congress have also become social media “stars,” including Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who is running for California governor despite having only one residence in Virginia 3,000 miles away. He also has a fairly large social media following, with more than 1 million followers on X and Instagram despite having no discernible legislative record.
In a deep-blue state, Swalwell could very well win. Like Crockett, there aren’t too many days that go by without seeing him on the air. And it’s not to discuss policy, of course, but to bash Trump and Republicans as so-called anchors just sit and nod along. His Democratic opponent, Katie Porter, is barely seen in comparison, while Republican candidates Steve Hilton and Chad Bianco are mostly relegated to right-leaning outlets nationally.
TRUMP OWNS THE MORAL HIGH GROUND ON DRUGS AND BORDERS. HIS COMMUNICATIONS TEAM IS SETTING IT ON FIRE
That’s the media ecosystem we live in now. Being a pragmatic adult won’t get you airtime, but being an unhinged, unserious caricature absolutely will.
Crockett and Swalwell and others are not about substance or making the lives of voters better. For them, it’s all about vanity and celebrity — nothing more.
, 2025-12-13 13:00:00, 
, Washington Examiner, %%https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/cropped-favicon.png?w=32, https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/feed/, Joe Concha
