Mary Katharine Ham UNLOADS On Her Own Network in Unflinching Rant

CNN political commentator Mary Katharine Ham unloaded on her network Friday as part of a broader disagreement between herself and several members of the press, including both CNN’s Andrew Kaczynski and the New York Times‘ Maggie Haberman, about comments by Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.
Gov. DeSantis this week complained that the media are trying to “milk” Jan. 6 to attack Republicans, and sensationalizing it in a way they would never do if the parties were reversed.
“I just look back and compare when I was in Congress. One event that we faced was the attempted assassination of Republican members of Congress on the baseball game. I actually was on the field,” said DeSantis. “If you do not have the Capitol Police there, you probably would have a dozen people assassinated. That was like a one-day, two-day story. That was not something that the Capitol-based press wanted to talk about. Why? Because it totally undercut their preferred narratives.”
When that quote was shared on Twitter, NYT’s Haberman retweeted it and disputed the idea that there was uneven coverage.
He’s arguing the shootings didn’t get much coverage? Pretty sure they were a huge story. https://t.co/g5uXIdzehh
— Maggie Haberman (@maggieNYT) January 7, 2022
Ham retweeted that with a reminder about how the story was covered.
I lived a block from the baseball field. Under 48 hours, the news vans were gone. I was on TV, live from the baseball field where they played the game a day later, after almost being canceled by mass murder, but my topic was “Mike Pence reportedly hired a lawyer.” https://t.co/b5lIakIwIb
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 7, 2022
You’re welcome to talk yourself into idea that a similar murder attempt on an entire team of Democrats would have gotten the same treatment. I think the shooting of Gabby Giffords is pretty analogous and disproves that theory. Even without that data point, it’s just not true.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 7, 2022
And it doesn’t mean Jan. 6 doesn’t deserve coverage. Moving on after 48 hrs would be wrong for that and for Gabby Giffords! But the coverage was what it was, Scalise’s return to Congress was very sparsely covered, and the anniversary was barely mentioned.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 7, 2022
I checked at the time, and it is real. News vans were staked out at the home of the parents of Elizabeth Lauten, the GOP staffer who criticized Obama’s daughters on Facebook that time, for longer than they were at the practice baseball field. That’s not just a news cycle issue.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 7, 2022
At this point, CNN’s Kaczynski chimed in with an attempted dunk, showing a screenshot of Ham talking on-air about the shooting. In her tweet thread, Ham pointed out that she had talked on-air from the location, and it was implicit in both DeSantis’s comments and Ham’s that there was some coverage, not none. Perhaps @KFILE was hoping people who saw his tweet had not read her entire thread and would therefore consider it a dunk.
It looks you discussed the baseball game? https://t.co/Nj1BKPJQTa pic.twitter.com/de0jkhabRx
— andrew kaczynski (@KFILE) January 8, 2022
That’s when @MKHammer dropped the hammer.
Hi, Andrew. Yes, this is within 24-48 hrs that this was a story. This segment was based on the galactically stupid Sanford contention that it was *Trump’s rhetoric* that caused it, bc of course. Pointed out Nats Park hit bc it was overlooking the game & yet not focused on this. https://t.co/ilUflRJ60d
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 8, 2022
Do you need the rest of my itinerary from that day and the day after, which again, were basically the only days this was a national story, which was my point?
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 8, 2022
Ham didn’t stop there. She went on to blast Kaczynski for his own disparate coverage – when it comes to CNN scandals.
Got jack to say about Cuomo and Toobin, but gotta fact-check me when he’s got nothing.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 8, 2022
After Hot Air’s Allahpundit reacted, Ham got very, very real:
🤷🏻♀️ One jacked off in front of female colleagues and one violated every conflict of interest rule in journalism, lied about it, and got fired, but I’m the issue bc I think the Congressional baseball shooting was covered too lightly and taxes are too high. Sure, dude.
— Mary Katharine Ham (@mkhammer) January 8, 2022
Haberman reacted to Kaczynski’s tweet, blaming Ham for “picking a fight” over her disputing something Haberman said. Haberman herself is a frequent quote retweeter, and in fact was doing that exact thing when Ham replied, but perhaps it’s picking a fight if done to her, not by her?
There have been no additional interactions by any of the three journalists since the brief dispute, which again was precipitated by Haberman’s bad take on disparate coverage.
Ham is a popular conservative commentator and writer, and her appearances on CNN are typically well-received. Her name has also come up as a possible replacement for Meghan McCain on The View, and she’ll be one of several guest hosts while the show seeks someone permanent. If being fearlessly forthright is a quality they’re looking for, she should be a front-runner.