CBS News Duo Holds Biden Accountable. Laura Ingraham Gets Petty. Gosar Is Unrepentant. | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

THE DAILY NEWSLETTER – THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2021

Photo by Doug Mills-Pool/Getty Images.

MEDIA WINNERS: CBS News White House Reporters Fin Gómez and Kathryn Watson

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador are scheduled to visit President Joe Biden at the White House on Thursday afternoon, the first time the three countries’ heads of state will meet in person since 2016, before the election of Donald Trump.

This “Three Amigos” trilateral meeting will be missing the traditional joint press conference featuring all three leaders, and CBS News White House reporters Fin Gómez and Kathryn Watson called out Biden for skipping it.

Biden had “pitched himself as the return of normalcy and tradition when running for office against Mr. Trump,” Gómez and Watson noted, “so skipping the press conference came as something of a surprise to White House reporters this week.”

A free press plays a vital role in holding elected officials accountable, and Biden avoiding questions on the always-hot topic of immigration is not a good look. Gómez and Watson’s critique was fair, well-researched, and got results — a Thursday morning update said that after their article was originally published, Biden “told reporters he would be happy to take questions after meeting with his Mexican and Canadian counterparts.”

MEDIA LOSER: Laura Ingraham

It was Wednesday, so Fox News’ Laura Ingraham really should have worn pink if she was going to act like she was auditioning for a Mean Girls reboot. That was our reaction to comments she made mocking Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) reaction to an anime video tweeted by Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) that portrayed her getting killed by a character representing Gosar (see A Block in the full Green Room newsletter for a full rundown).

AOC spoke on the House floor during the debate for the vote to censure Gosar, and — quelle surprise! — she wasn’t thrilled with one of her colleagues posting a video celebrating the idea of killing her, she wasn’t thrilled with House Republican leadership for shrugging the whole thing off, and she just seemed to not be thrilled in general with getting death threats.

All pretty reasonable reactions, but not to Ingraham. The Fox News host played the clip of Ocasio-Cortez’s remarks and then — far more theatrically than any moment of Ocasio-Cortez’s speech, Ingraham declared, “Best actress in an ongoing drama is AOC!”

It was just plain petty. And, as Mediaite’s Colby Hall pointed out, “One might wonder how [Ingraham] would react to a video in which she was depicted as being killed, particularly in this bitterly divided political climate.”

Links We Like:

The QAnon Shaman Gets 41 Months in Prison. Good
– Dan McLaughlin, National Review
Why prosecutors get away with misconduct
– Radley Balko, Washington Post
To Fight Climate Change, Los Angeles Bans Restaurants From Giving Out Unsolicited Ketchup Packets
– Christian Britschgi, Reason
Apple will finally let you fix your own devices — sort of
– Rebecca Heilweil, Recode

Read the full Mediaite Green Room Newsletter here, including the latest on the House hearing to censure Rep. Gosar and his unrepentant reaction.