By Michael Woyton
It should not be a surprise to anyone that Paramount Skydance’s multi-billionaire owners put a presidential-felon-friendly person in charge of CBS News.
The announcement Monday that former New York Times pundit Bari Weiss will be the storied news organization’s editor-in-chief is not receiving great reviews from those who value journalistic principals or competency.
Esquire’s Charles Pierce wrote in advance of the announcement that “[b]ased on her resume, Weiss isn’t any more qualified to run a major news organization than she is to fly Artemis III to the moon,” all jokes about rocket science to the contrary.
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Pierce’s kicker was that this move of hiring “a conservative affirmative-action monitor” for the newsroom in effect turns the Tiffany Network into the Dollar Store.
That said, CBS News pre-Weiss published what may be its last trustworthy poll in connection with YouGov over the weekend showing less than stellar results for the current commander-in-chief as well as both political parties.
As we discussed Friday, polls from the Washington Post, Marist, Siena and Morning Consult found pluralities blaming the the GOPmaga administration and Congress for the ongoing government shutdown, now in its sixth day.
CBS’s poll also blames the party that holds power in all three branches of government for the shutdown — according to 39 percent of respondents. Congressional Dems got 30 percent of the blame, with 31 percent saying everybody is equally at fault.
What caught my eye was the part of the poll results that focused on the economy.
How many times during his campaign for a second term did Trump promise to do something about skyrocketing grocery prices?
During the summer of 2024, he even stood in front of a table of food items at one of his golf courses and said, “When I win, I will immediately bring prices down, starting on day one.”
Well, people remembered and noticed that “day one” has come and gone, and, according to the CBS News poll, they said “the Trump administration isn’t focused enough on lowering prices.”
People who responded to the poll said the most important issue facing the country was economy and jobs — 27 percent — and inflation — 21 percent.
Health care came in at 15 percent, and that might change in the near future because of next year’s premium payments for the Affordable Care Act Marketplace.
They are expected to go up drastically due to the enhanced premium tax credits set to expire at the end of 2025. The Democrats in Congress have been trying to no avail to get the tax credits extended.
Back to the CBS News poll, when asked what people thought of Trump’s focus on lowering prices, 75 percent said there was not enough focus, with 20 percent saying it was the right amount and 5 percent thinking he was spending too much time on the issue.
In fact, 51 percent of people said Trump’s policies were making them worse off. Thirty-two percent said they were the same and only 17 percent said they were better off.
The CBS News/YouGov poll, conducted between Oct. 1 and Oct. 3, has a ±2.3 margin of error.
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I’d pay good money to see Miller perp walked.
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Lead art: Screen grab from CBS News website.
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