We often accuse the Elitist Media, with a decades-long body of evidence here at the Media Research Center, of conducting themselves in a manner similar to that of progressive activists. On rare occasions, they also act as policy advisors.

It isn’t often that the media will try to steer liberal politicians away from a 20% position on an 80% issue. On matters pertaining to transgender treatments for minors, for example, they joined Democrats in going right off the cliff. But on voter ID, it appears that they appear to be finding religion.

Watch as CNN’s Dana Bash and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries discuss the SAVE Act:

WATCH: CNN’s Dana Bash very gently points to Hakeem Jeffries that Voter ID is an 80%+ issue, Hakeen Jeffries vomits all over the SAVE Act nonetheless pic.twitter.com/rnJ3GMSeLF
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 8, 2026

DANA BASH: I want to turn to a big debate about elections. The president said this week -this past week, that he wanted to nationalize elections at The White House and on Capitol Hill. They say that what they mean legislatively is pushing what they call the SAVE Act, which would mandate Americans show proof of citizenship like a birth certificate and also potentially more information about the registration to vote. Now, I understand you don’t support things like a passport, for example, but requiring basic ID in order to vote is really popular. A Pew poll from a few months ago showed 83% of Americans, including 71% of your fellow Democrats, support requiring an ID to vote. Why are they wrong?

HAKEEM JEFFRIES: Well, I haven’t said that they’re wrong. We know that states are the ones who are empowered to conduct elections, and every state should be allowed to decide the best way to proceed to ensure that there’s a free and fair election. Here in New York there are, in fact, voter identification requirements. The question is that what Republicans are trying to do is to engage in clear and blatant voter suppression. They know that if there’s a free and fair election in November, they’re going to lose. In fact, Republicans have been losing every single election since Donald Trump was sworn in in January of last year, including most recently, decisively in Texas. And of course, losing all across the country up and down the ballot in the November off year elections in places like New Jersey or Virginia, New York.

BASH: Yeah. And they’ve been losing. I mean, Virginia is a good example. They have a requirement to show your ID and Democrats won very, very handily across- across the way. So why not maybe even just take that off the table and say, okay, maybe not a passport or a birth certificate, but show ID?

JEFFRIES: Well, first of all, every state is empowered to be able to make the decision on their own, and we completely and totally support that. What Donald Trump wants to do is try to nationalize the election. Translation: steal it. And we’re not going to let it happen. We stopped them in terms of their gerrymandering efforts where they were going to try to redraw congressional maps in red states throughout the nation, not expect Democrats to respond forcefully, and try to rig the midterms. They failed. We’ve stopped Donald Trump from being able to federalize the National Guard, which we believe was probably part of some toxic attempt to unleash troops on American cities all across the nation and intimidate people from voting. And we’re going to stop him from nationalizing the election. This is going to be a free and fair election. It’s going to be conducted like every other election, where states and localities have the ability to administer the laws.

It is not surprising that an elected Democrat would oppose requiring proof of citizenship and/or picture identification prior to voting. It is surprising to see Elitist Media try to lead the elected Democrat off the ledge and into the realm of common sense. TWICE, in this instance. But Jeffries refused both of Bash’s attempts at coming into some sort of gentle triangulation.

Instead, Jeffries expounded on his Strange New Respect for Article I, Section II, Article II, Section I, and the 10th Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. This is all opportunistic, of course, and directly antithetical to his previous support for the “For the People Act”, which of course “federalized” elections in all the ways the Democrats wanted. Bash did not call him out on these hypocrisies.

ABC’s Jon Karl had a similar exchange with California Senator Adam Schiff. Schiff’s oppositions, though, rested upon a different predicate than those of Jeffries:

WATCH: ABC’s Jon Karl tries to get Adam Schiff to move off of SAVE Act objections by isolating Voter ID and demonstrating it is an 80%+ issue, Schiff bitterly clings to the Helpless Minorities Hoax pic.twitter.com/YLK3paqs5T
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) February 8, 2026

JON KARL: So Republicans are making a big push for the so-called SAVE Act, at least some Republicans are. It would require proof of citizenship to be able to vote. I understand you and other Democrats oppose that. There are roughly 20 or so million voting age Americans who don’t actually have the requisite- the papers that would be required to- to- to show readily available. But given there’s Republicans have undermined confidence in elections and the integrity of elections: what about the- what about the idea of voter ID, a photo ID being required to vote? Are you in favor of that? Can- can there be a compromise where Democrats and Republicans put forward photo ID as a requirement for voting?

ADAM SCHIFF: So, Jonathan, what- what you’ve just asked is essentially, Republicans have created distrust of the elections by making nonexistent- by making claims of nonexistent fraud in the elections. And shouldn’t we use the distrust they’ve created in order to enact a voter suppression law, which is the SAVE Act, which would require people to have a birth certificate or passport documents that millions of Americans don’t have. Almost half the country doesn’t have a passport, and I don’t know where many millions of people would even find a birth certificate, so…

(CROSSTALK)

KARL: I was…No, no, no, but- but…I asked you…

SCHIFF: …phony fraud claims…

KARL: But I was asking you a different question. Photo ID. Because, as you know, let’s show up…there was a recent poll. There’s been a lot of polls on this, but in one recent Pew poll, 83% of adults support requiring photo ID to vote, 71% of Democrats favor requiring photo ID. Is that something that you can support? And if not, why not?

SCHIFF: It’s still going to be something, John. It’s- it’s still going to be something that disenfranchises people that don’t have the proper Real ID, driver’s license ID that, that don’t have the ID necessary to vote even though they are citizens. This is another way to simply try to suppress the vote. And the last thing I think we want to do is discourage more people, more citizens, from voting while they’re attacking those same elections, while they’re trying to do away with absentee ballot voting, while they’re trying to do away with being able to register to vote…

KARL: All right…

SCHIFF: …through the DMV or by the mail. So it’s part of the broader disenfranchisement effort. And no, I don’t think that’s the right direction.

KARL: All right, Senator Schiff, thank you for joining us this morning. 

Karl tried to soft-pitch the idea of Voter ID to Schiff as a way to maybe get Republicans off of election integrity. But Schiff refused. Like Jeffries, he called it “voter suppression.” 

Karl then took another pass, citing overwhelming support this time. Schiff was unfazed, and went to one of the most bigoted tropes that has been historically deployed in opposition to voter ID: the Helpless Minorities Hoax- that is, the idea that persons of ethnic minority origins are somehow incapable of securing the proper documents required to satisfy proof of identity or citizenship. Karl did not push back on this, choosing instead to wrap the segment.

It says something that even the Elitist Media recognize where the country is on such an issue as voter ID, in a way that they didn’t about other 80/20 issues. But after immolating themselves on other issues such as Covid and transgender treatments for kids, this appears to be a matter of basic self-preservation.