Like a street magician drawing your attention to his right hand while his left hand palms the coin, America’s mainstream media has perfected the art of misdirection. While cities burned and federal officers faced violent mobs, CNN and MSNBC worked overtime to convince their dwindling audiences that what they were witnessing wasn’t really happening at all.

The anti-ICE riots that have swept across America tell a story the establishment media desperately wants to bury. From Los Angeles to New York City, from Chicago to Atlanta, violent mobs have attacked federal immigration officers, torched police vehicles, and turned downtown areas into war zones. The National Guard has been deployed in multiple states, with hundreds of arrests made as rioters threw fireworks at police, smashed storefronts, and waved foreign flags while burning American cities.

But if you relied on CNN or MSNBC for your news, you’d think these were church picnics that got slightly out of hand. (Shocking, I know.)

Here’s what I find most infuriating: The Media Research Center conducted a comprehensive study of cable news coverage from June 7-11, and what they discovered should outrage every American who still believes journalism matters. In just five days of coverage, CNN and MSNBC personalities insisted that the chaos engulfing American cities was “mostly peaceful” or “largely peaceful” a staggering 211 times.

From the Media Research Center study:

CNN was responsible for 123 claims that the riots were “peaceful,” while MSNBC reminded viewers 88 times, according to the MRC. No reporter acknowledged any link between the peaceful and violent elements of the crowds. The rioters were exclusively framed as ‘rogue actors,’ or ‘lone wolves,’ and there was never any assertion that they might share common cause with the more peaceful individuals.

Let that sink in for a moment. While Americans watched videos of burning cars and police officers dodging bottles and fireworks, these networks found 211 separate opportunities to gaslight their viewers about what was happening right before their eyes. CNN’s Jake Tapper deserves credit as the lone voice willing to call these incidents “riots” – apparently being honest about obvious violence makes you a radical at these networks now.

What strikes me as particularly absurd is the scope of this coordinated deception when you consider what was actually happening on America’s streets. In Los Angeles, the epicenter of the violence, businesses boarded up their windows as mobs smashed vehicles and set fires. In Chicago, a car drove through crowds of demonstrators at 50 miles per hour. In Atlanta, rioters threw fireworks directly at police officers. In New York City, over 80 people were arrested as “peaceful protesters” clashed with law enforcement.

This isn’t journalism – it’s propaganda, pure and simple. These networks learned absolutely nothing from their embarrassing performance during the 2020 BLM riots, when they similarly insisted cities weren’t burning while flames literally appeared in their background shots. The American people saw through those lies then, and we’re seeing through these lies now.

Here’s what makes this media malpractice even more infuriating: the context they’re deliberately ignoring. These riots erupted because President Trump had the audacity to enforce America’s immigration laws – something previous administrations promised but never delivered. When federal officers began removing people who entered our country illegally, the radical left responded with violence, and the media responded with cover-up operations disguised as news coverage.

Can you imagine the outrage if conservative protesters burned police cars and attacked federal officers? But when it serves the left’s narrative, suddenly destruction becomes “mostly peaceful demonstration.”

President Trump’s decisive response stands in stark contrast to the media’s dishonesty. While CNN and MSNBC twisted themselves into pretzels trying to explain away burning police cars, Trump deployed the National Guard to restore order and protect law-abiding Americans. He refused to let mob rule replace the rule of law, regardless of how the corrupt media characterized his actions. That’s leadership – something we haven’t seen from Washington in years.

I’ll tell you what gives me hope in all this madness: most Americans can see exactly what’s happening here. They watch the videos, see the destruction, and then hear media personalities tell them their lying eyes are wrong. This is precisely why CNN and MSNBC have shed viewers faster than a sinking ship sheds lifeboats. When you repeatedly lie to people who can see the truth for themselves, you lose credibility forever.

We’re witnessing something far more dangerous than biased reporting – we’re seeing the complete abandonment of journalism in favor of political activism. These networks have chosen sides, and it’s not the side of truth, law and order, or the American people. They’ve chosen the side of chaos, lawlessness, and foreign flags burning in American streets.

But here’s what I know for certain: President Trump refuses to back down, conservative media continues to tell the truth, and American patriots are wide awake to these games. The magician’s trick only works when the audience doesn’t know where to look. We know exactly where to look now, and we don’t like what we see. The establishment media’s credibility is burning faster than those police cars in Los Angeles – and unlike their favorite “mostly peaceful” riots, there’s no coming back from this destruction.

Sources: Fox News, BBC, OutKick