The latest bout of self-congratulation from MS NOW over the White Houses press-access games has produced a revealing and faintly absurd claim about the networks supposed ideological diversity.
According to Mediaite, MS NOW president Rebecca Kutler recently appeared on a Wired podcast and painted a flattering portrait of her channels election-night coverage and political breadth, insisting that her lineup represents a wide spectrum of views united by a single theme. Michael Steele is a big part of our election night [coverage], Kutler told Wired on a recent podcast. He was chairman of the Republican National Committee. So we have a broad range of views. But I think they all fall under that pro-democracy banner. For a network already basking in its own sense of importance amid the White House press ban, the boast only underscores how detached its leadership is from political reality.
Kutlers showcase example of ideological variety former RNC chair Michael Steele is doing a great deal of heavy lifting for her argument. If a network president is going to insist that her channel offers a broad landscape of opinions, she should be able to point to more than a single, safe, and reliably on-brand Republican-turned-cable-pundit. The fact that Steele is the lone exhibit, and that his on-air commentary is virtually indistinguishable from that of his liberal colleagues, makes the claim of diversity ring hollow.
Treating Steele as some bold departure from MS NOWs prevailing orthodoxy is, frankly, laughable. He can be dropped seamlessly into the same lineup of progressive hosts and contributors without the slightest ideological friction. Not only does Kutler fail to demonstrate a genuinely broad range of views, but by leaning on Steele as her proof point, she struggles to show there is any meaningful range at all.
The only way to sustain her narrative is to dredge up Steeles rsum and hope viewers do not notice how far he has drifted from the party he once led. Michael Steele was, indeed, the former Republican Party head but that was roughly 15 years ago, and his tenure ended with his ouster and a rapid retreat from the GOP base that had elevated him. Since then, he has been comfortably ensconced at MS NOW, where his commentary tracks neatly with the networks prevailing anti-Republican, anti-Trump line.
Steele has become emblematic of the broader Never Trump cohort that has spent the past decade rebranding itself as the conscience of conservatism while functionally serving progressive interests. These figures present themselves as principled guardians of the Right, insisting they are merely trying to preserve the integrity of conservatism against populist excess. Steele declared once, . The rhetoric is lofty, but the record tells a different story.
Like his colleague Nicolle Wallace another former Republican operative turned liberal cable star Steeles claims of defending conservative principles are routinely contradicted by his on-air positions. He and Wallace, along with most of the Never Trump chorus, are exposed by a single, unavoidable question. As they claim to be holding the ground of true conservatism (at least at one time), they need to answer this: ?
Time and again, these self-described true conservatives line up behind Democrats or, at minimum, against Republican candidates and policies. When have viewers seen Steele and his cohort champion a candidate whose agenda actually reflects the limited government, traditional values, and free-market principles they once professed to uphold? Practically never.
Instead, their message is monotonously consistent: vote against Republicans, especially Donald Trump and anyone aligned with him, and if that means empowering Democrats, so be it. The fight is never framed as an internal GOP struggle no serious push to primary wayward Republicans, no sustained effort to elevate authentically conservative alternatives. It is, in practice, a straightforward vote-Dem strategy dressed up as moral courage.
In that light, Steele is not evidence of ideological breadth at MS NOW; he is a carbon copy of the networks prevailing worldview, merely wearing an old Republican label for branding purposes. Rebecca Kutler can continue to insist she presides over a broad range of views, but for viewers who actually care about genuine debate and real conservative representation, the spectrum on offer at her network is narrower than advertised.
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