CBS News senior White House and political correspondent Ed O’Keefe swooned how more than 100 of “the nation’s top corporate leaders met virtually on Saturday to discuss ways for companies” to fight “restrictive” voting laws across the country.
The “corporate leaders” involved included the CEO of the parent company that oversees O’Keefe’s own news organization.
What’s interesting is that some of the CEOs in the meeting reportedly tuned in from the Augusta National Golf Club in Georgia. The state had recently passed legislation protecting voter integrity. Liberal attendees included notorious LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, Walmart CEO Doug McMillon, former Fox News heir and climate activist James Murdoch and ViacomCBS President and CEO Robert Bakish. ViacomCBS is the parent company of CBS News.
Bakish’s direct involvement in the liberal corporate initiative presents a potentially sticky conflict of interest case for CBS News. The meeting was reportedly co-organized by Hillary Clinton donor and Coalition for Inclusive Capitalism Founder and CEO Lynn Forester de Rothschild. She is the wife of prominent Rothschild family member and mega-billionaire Sir Evelyn de Rothschild.
O’Keefe pivoted off of a study by the liberal Brennan Center for Justice to whine “that lawmakers in 47 states have introduced 361 bills that would restrict voting access.” O’Keefe attempted to sell the Brennan Center’s talking point that it is “nonpartisan.” However, a quick glance at a 2020 Brennan Center press release clearly showed that the organization is anything but “nonpartisan”: “Dismantling Structural Racism Is Key to Ending Over-Policing and Mass Incarceration.” Also, liberal billionaire George Soros’s Foundation to Promote Open Society had funneled at least $4,450,000 to the Brennan Center just between 2016 and 2019 alone. O’Keefe didn’t mention the organization’s connection to Soros, of course.
O’Keefe propagandized the sentiments of Yale University Professor of Management and event co-organizer Jeffrey Sonnenfeld to emphasize Corporate America’s wokeness:
‘The gathering was an enthusiastic voluntary statement of defiance against threats of reprisals for exercising their patriotic voices.’
Sure. It’s interesting that “[t]he meeting ended with no concrete game plan or timetable,” O’Keefe said. Instead, the meeting ended with “a general plan to draft potential responses based on a firm's size and resources.”
CBS News recently showcased its blatant hypocrisy by promoting the Masters golf tournament in Georgia after spending a week pushing a far-left boycott over the state’s new voting law. During coverage of the tournament, CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King chimed that “ViacomCBS, that’s us, is one of many companies publicly opposing the voting law.”
Conservatives are under attack. Contact CBS News at 1 (212) 975-3247 and demand it release a public statement distancing itself from ViacomCBS joining a liberal scheme to fight state voting laws.
NewsBusters Associate Editor Scott Whitlock contributed to this report.
