Mediaite Pod Fails To Challenge WHCA President’s Race-Baiting Hoax

Aidan McLaughlin, editor-in-chief of left-leaning news outlet Mediaite, has much to talk about with Politico’s Eugene Daniels on this weekend’s Press Club podcast. Daniels, co-author of Politico’s Playbook and president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, dishes on the “insane” “excitement” over Vice President Kamala Harris’ emergence as the Democrats’ presumed presidential candidate after old, lonesome Joe Biden bailed out of the race like George Washington (at least according to the corporate media rewriters of history). 

“Daniels also spoke about Harris’ veepstakes, the DNC’s virtual roll call, and the difficulties of separating Harris’ run from Biden’s record while she still serves as his vice president,” according to a Friday Mediaite story promoting the podcast.

What McLaughlin curiously didn’t get around to, according to the podcast’s transcript, is why the esteemed president of the White House Correspondents’ Association falsely accused Brian Kilmeade of “Fox & Friends” of a racist remark. Daniels’ race-baiting post on X, after all, helped the atrocious accusation go viral. 

‘Ridiculous’ 

Daniels and others accused Kilmeade of being a racist after he criticized Harris for skipping a speech before Congress by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to campaign at a “college” sorority in Indianapolis. Daniels, and others, claimed they heard Kilmeade say “colored” sorority. They heard wrong, as anyone who actually listened to the clip will attest. That long list includes black radio host Charlamagne the God.

“He said ‘college’!” Charlamagne told his audience on his nationally syndicated show “The Breakfast Club,” calling the manufactured outrage “ridiculous.”

Daniels repeated a claim originally made by a troll on X accusing Kilmeade of making a racist comment. 

“Kilmeade: ‘She’d rather address, in the summer, a sorority … a COLORED sorority, like she can’t get outta that!’ Not this in the year of Beyoncé 2024,” Daniels wrote on his Politico X account. 

Other prominent leftists glommed on.

“‘A COLORED sorority’ … in 2024 on national tv… this clown thought it was correct and appropriate to use the term ‘colored’ to describe a distinguished and historic African American sorority,” Jaimie Harrison, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, faux-fumed on X. 

None of it was true. But why let the truth get in the way of a good race-baiting narrative? 

‘You’re So D-mn Dishonest’

After the talking point went up in smoke, Daniels walked back his tweet — and deleted it. He posted on X that he “spoke to Fox News about this and plan on speaking to Brian when he is off air. They’ve made clear to me that he used college, not colored. 

“The audio is garbled but I am going to take Brian and his team at their word,” the Politico reporter claimed. It wasn’t garbled, and it probably would have helped to talk to Brian and his team before firing off an incendiary tweet. Ready, fire, aim. The president of the White House Correspondents Association didn’t bother to seek comment from the man he accused of being a racist until after he made his false allegation. 

Fox issued a statement, saying, “Eugene Daniels’ now deleted tweet completely misquoted and unnecessarily maligned Brian Kilmeade who clearly said college sorority.”

Fox & Friends’ Lawrence Jones defended his co-host on X, challenging Harrison to debate the issues.  

“I’m the black man. You’re so damn dishonest. He said ‘college,’” Jones wrote. “But that’s all you have. You know the bullsh-t that you advocate for only brings death, poverty, and destruction to our black communities. You are welcome on the show anytime to debate it.” 

‘Understandably Angry’ 

Mediaite’s McLaughlin should be well aware of Daniels’ accusation and the damage it’s caused. His publication has reported on every bit of it. One headline read: “Brian Kilmeade Hits Back at Critics That Falsely Claimed He Used a Racial Epithet: ‘I’m Not Going to Back Off.’“

“Brian Kilmeade was understandably angry Thursday morning as he addressed getting smeared by a number of prominent political and media officials who alleged he used a racial epithet on Fox & Friends,” the story opens. 

Kilmeade addressed the attacks Thursday morning on his syndicated radio show. 

“So this ends up being this big thing, and it turns out the person who did it is head of the Washington Correspondents Association,” Kilmeade said, as reported by Mediaite. “And he’s a Politico guy who does Playbook every day. I ended up speaking to him at the end of the day, and that conversation remained private. But they walked it back.”

“They corrected it, but it didn’t stop for four or five hours,” Kilmeade added. “People like Jamie Harrison, head of the DNC, calling me a clown, making racial, accusations. … People across the country just see the headline and start throwing things, things out. It disparages me, disparages this company.”

So why didn’t this national story of race-based hate-churning come up in McLaughlin’s lengthy conversation with Daniels? I asked Mediaite’s editor.

“Why did you not ask him about the one thing that actually brought Mr. Daniels to the public’s collective attention this week? Seems like an important subject,” I wrote in an email to McLaughlin on Friday afternoon. As of publication he has not responded. 

I also reached out to Mike DeBonis, editor of Politico’s Playbook, on what the publication thinks of its reporter making unfounded allegations about a fellow journalist and whether Politico has any plans to discipline Daniels for failing to follow basic journalism principles. 

No reply. 

Daniels’ misdirected and false outrage should come as no surprise, however, on a week in which corporate media, White House reporters in particular, have beclowned themselves in unprecedented ways — from reinventing Harris’ “border czar” past to redefining Joe Biden as a great patriot for leaving a campaign they pushed him out of. 

Matt Kittle is a senior elections correspondent for The Federalist. An award-winning investigative reporter and 30-year veteran of print, broadcast, and online journalism, Kittle previously served as the executive director of Empower Wisconsin.