PBS’s Woodruff Uses MSNBC’s ‘Center-Right’ Charlie Sykes as Her Guide to Wisconsin
Former PBS NewsHour host Judy Woodruff didn’t retire but is now reporting from the field. On Monday, she reported from Wisconsin on an important Supreme Court election in the hotly contested state, as part of her “America at a Crossroads” series.
Yet the 13-minute-long examination of the election tilted to the left, with her primary political analyst being Charlie Sykes, an almost-daily liberal presence on MSNBC. Despite that, Woodruff presented him as a Republican from the “center-right news and opinion site” The Bulwark. We’ve noted that the guest tilt on the NewsHour makes PBS seem like MSNBC, and this is another chunk of proof.
Woodruff set the table for the officially non-partisan Wisconsin election on the officially “objective,” taxpayer-supported NewsHour Monday night:
Next up was young black “queer” voter Sydney Lee, campaigning for the fiercely pro-abortion Protasiewicz, who says “human issues” like abortion and the LGBTQ agenda should be off the table.
In her one nod to actual conservatism, Woodruff noted that Daniel Kelly’s soft-on-crime accusations against Protasiewicz “influenced retired Milwaukee police officer Gary Post to vote for Kelly.”
Sykes blamed the current political divisions on former Republican Gov. Scott Walker’s successful 2011 clash with the state’s public employee unions, requiring public employees to make larger contributions to their own health care plans and pensions. That was a big MSNBC cause back then, especially with host Ed Schultz. Woodruff made the usual pro-union spin.
The “actual policy” closed the state deficit, but PBS wasn’t noticing. Woodruff conveniently found a Republican who no longer votes Republican:
Liberal professor Maya Sen of Harvard was brought on for a discussion of the courts that focused solely on conservative stratagems reaching back to the Bush-Gore decision in 2000, as if liberals had no sway. Sen argued Trump’s federal judges were more conservative than those nominated by George W. Bush, while Obama’s and Biden’s judges went conveniently unrated.
Woodruff sneakily suggested that the sensible Dobbs decision overturning the dubiously argued Roe v. Wade decision had blown the U.S. Supreme Court’s credibility:
Judy Woodruff: After a long winter, small signs of spring in the Upper Midwest, but, as Wisconsin thaws, the bitter winds of politics are against sweeping the Badger State. This time around, though, the race isn’t for Congress, governor, or the presidency. It’s for the state Supreme Court. This election is officially nonpartisan. Neither of the candidates will have a D or an R next to their names on the ballot. But given the deep divide here, and the fact that the state Supreme Court will play a role in deciding the future of everything from abortion, to redistricting, to election laws in Wisconsin, voter interest is high and politics has been infused from the start.
Janet Protasiewicz, Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate: We cannot take our foot off the pedal for a second.
Judy Woodruff: The election pits liberal Milwaukee County Judge Janet Protasiewicz…
Daniel Kelly, Wisconsin Supreme Court Candidate: Janet Protasiewicz is a threat to our liberties.
Judy Woodruff: … against conservative Daniel Kelly, a former state Supreme Court justice who lost reelection in 2020. Tomorrow’s winner could cast the tie-breaking vote on an evenly split court. Hello there. I’m Judy Woodruff. So I wanted to hear from voters in this sharply divided state at a time of growing partisanship, not just here, but in courts across the country. Charlie Sykes, Editor at Large, The Bulwark: We have never seen anything quite like this.
Judy Woodruff: Charlie Sykes is a longtime political commentator in Wisconsin. Once a conservative talk show host, he founded the center-right news and opinion site The Bulwark.
Charlie Sykes: Good morning, and welcome to The Bulwark podcast. I think that, in the last decade or so, Wisconsin has felt like it is the ground zero for a lot of the issues that we have in American politics. And maybe the polarization that we see nationally was foreshadowed here in Wisconsin.
Sydney Lee, Wisconsin Voter: It’s really scary, because there’s so much on the line.
Judy Woodruff: Twenty-five-year-old Sydney Lee has lived in Milwaukee her whole life. She’s been canvassing and making calls in support of Protasiewicz.
Sydney Lee: We have a lot of issues that are becoming partisan, but, really, they’re human issues. And human issues should never be a partisan thing.
Because it is so polarizing, we need somebody who’s equitable, and Janet is equitable.
Judy Woodruff: Among those human issues, Lee says, are LGBTQ and abortion rights, especially after the U.S. Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade last year.
Sydney Lee: I’m a Black queer woman, and I want to make sure that I can marry who I want to marry one day. I want to make sure that, if I need to have an abortion, or if I need a medical procedure, that I shouldn’t need clearance for it to do something that’s for my choice of my body. Like, I should be able to make decisions for myself.
Judy Woodruff: What does your future look like if Justice Kelly is the winner?
Sydney Lee: It looks like me moving.
Judy Woodruff: While Protasiewicz hasn’t declared how she’d rule if Wisconsin’s 1849 ban on abortion made its way to the state’s High Court, she has been clear on what she calls her values.
Janet Protasiewicz: That should be the woman’s right to make the reproductive health decision, period. If my opponent is elected, I can tell you with 100 percent certainty that 1849 abortion ban will stay on the books.
Judy Woodruff: Kelly has downplayed his own past statements opposing abortion and the endorsements he’s received from anti-abortion groups. Instead, he criticizes his opponent for openly discussing her views.
Daniel Kelly: This is the problem that you have when you have a candidate who does nothing but talk about her personal politics.
Narrator: Judges who put their own agenda above the law.
Judy Woodruff: Kelly and his supporters have also tried to paint Protasiewicz as weak on crime for sentences she handed down as a judge in Milwaukee County.
Narrator: A long history of letting dangerous criminals back into our streets.
Eric Severson, Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Sheriff: Directly undermining the work of our officers and putting your family at risk.
Judy Woodruff: That charge, which Protasiewicz disputes, has influenced retired Milwaukee police officer Gary Post to vote for Kelly.
Gary Post, Wisconsin Voter: Definitely, there should be leniency. Hollywood, what I have seen far too much is where I have seen violent person’s who are living a lifestyle over many, many years and sometimes decades of violence. And that has to be addressed.
Judy Woodruff: Bottom line, Post says he believes Protasiewicz is too progressive.
Gary Post: Our country is going into such a liberal pathway that it’s almost gone too far. And I think Janet Protasiewicz is more of a liberal steering it still in that direction.
Narrator: Remember this?
Judy Woodruff: But Protasiewicz has called Dan Kelly extreme, criticizing his work for the Republican Party and his role in a fake electors scheme after President Trump lost Wisconsin in 2020.
Narrator: Kelly advised Trump operatives as special counsel to overturn the will of the people.
Narrator: Janet upholds the Constitution.
Judy Woodruff: The race has already drawn record-breaking millions in ad spending.
Daniel Kelly: I will always protect the rule of law.
Charlie Sykes: This is one of those cases where the hype is not overstated, because, here in Wisconsin, everything is at stake. We now have extreme partisanship, but we also have gridlock between a legislature dominated by Republicans and a Democratic governor. Nothing is going to happen. Nothing is going to change. So everything shifts to the Supreme Court. And no one is making any pretense that this is anything other than partisan. So it’s going to be hard to go back to a, we ought to elect judges based on their credentials or their judicial temperament. That era seems to have been beaten to death with hammers.
Judy Woodruff: Charlie Sykes traces much of the polarization in Wisconsin back over a decade to then-Governor Scott Walker’s Act 10, a measure that, among other things, effectively ended collective bargaining for the state’s public employees. It sparked months of intense protests at the state capitol and exposed divisions still seen today.
Charlie Sykes: One of the things that, as I look back on it, at a certain point, our politics becomes about the fight. The fight becomes about the fight. It becomes about us vs. them. The actual policy matters less than beating the other guy.
Man: Ninety days to win elections.
Judy Woodruff: In the years since Act 10, Wisconsin’s statewide elections have flipped back and forth, many by razor-thin margins.
Wolf Blitzer, CNN Anchor: Donald…
Read More: PBS’s Woodruff Uses MSNBC’s ‘Center-Right’ Charlie Sykes as Her Guide to Wisconsin