Update: The Spanish network morning shows on Telemundo and Univision joined NBC, ABC, and CBS in completely ignoring Clinton's gaffe during Tuesday morning's campaign coverage.
Despite all three network morning shows on Tuesday covering Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders answering questions during back-to-back MSNBC town halls, none of the broadcasts reported on Clinton committing a major gaffe by claiming that the U.S. “didn’t lose a single person” in Libya.
Talking to Hardball host Chris Matthews Monday night, Clinton defended her support for the use of force in overthrowing dictator Muammar Gaddafi: “Is Libya perfect? It isn’t. But did they have two elections that were free and fair where they voted for moderates? Yes, they did....Libya was a different kind of calculation and we didn’t lose a single person...”
Matthews – whose wife’s congressional campaign has been funded by Clinton backers – didn’t bother to push back on that assertion with the obvious fact that four Americans were killed during the 2012 Benghazi attack.
While Clinton’s stumble was featured on their own cable channel, Tuesday’s NBC Today didn’t deem it newsworthy. Instead, the only mention of the town hall events was correspondent Kristen Welker touting how both Democratic contenders used the opportunity to hurl their “sharpest attacks” at Donald Trump:
KRISTEN WELKER: The two have been taking jabs at each other. But in a pair of MSNBC town halls last night, both saved their sharpest attacks for the GOP frontrunner Donald Trump.
HILLARY CLINTON: He's been building this incitement. He has been, you know, leading crowds in jeering protesters. He has been talking about punching people in the face. He's been encouraging the manhandling of both, you know, people who are attending, as well as journalists.
BERNIE SANDERS: This guy has insulted Mexicans, Muslims, women. He has insulted veterans – John McCain, a war hero. The American people are not going to vote for somebody like that.
On ABC’s Good Morning America, correspondent Cecila Vega followed the same pattern:
CECILIA VEGA: And while both candidates have their hopes on pulling off a victory today, in dueling town halls overnight, their focus was all about Donald Trump.
SANDERS: We have a major candidate for President of the United States, Donald Trump, who is literally inciting violence among his supporters.
CLINTON: People remember mob violence that led to lynching.
On CBS This Morning, co-host Gayle King used the town hall to illustrate how “Hillary Clinton says she feels good about her campaign and the votes that she has received.” A soundbite followed of Clinton proclaiming: “I've gotten 5 million votes, 600,000 more than Trump, 1.6 million more than Bernie Sanders, so I feel really good about where I am in this campaign and, of course, the number of delegates that I have won is also considerably higher than Senator Sanders.”
The networks were clearly well aware that the town halls happened, but just weren’t interested in reminding voters of one of Clinton’s scandals.
