CBS Miami has thrown journalistic integrity right out the window after it appears to have intentionally deleted a line of questioning and subsequent answer from an interview they conducted this past weekend with Progressive Democratic congressional candidate Pia Dandiya.
Dandiya, a first-time candidate and progressive millionaire living in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida, is running against Republican congressional candidate and U.S. Marine Veteran Casey Askar in the newly drawn and open 22nd District.
During the pre-taped interview with Jim Defede of CBS4 Miami, Dandiya was questioned about her roughly $14 million fortune, her living in a “nice home,” and her being a registered corporate lobbyist for Apple, Inc.
The full interview on “Facing South Florida was uploaded to the “Local News” section of the CBSNews.com website and to the official CBS Miami YouTube page.
Unfortunately for CBS Miami, it appear communication within the network broke down or is non-existent, and someone appears to have forgotten to tell whoever first uploaded the interview to the YouTube page to delete the unedited version on the site and upload the edited version instead. (Watch the video below)
The website clearly directs readers to "Watch the Full Interview," but when readers click onto the YouTube video link, it directs them to one of two edited versions of the interview.
It's like a journalistic bait-and-switch.
In the CBSNews.com uploaded video, Dandiya is asked about the aforementioned facts that she was a lobbyist for Apple and is a millionaire.
In the uploaded video to YouTube, both the line of questioning from Defede and Dandiya’s reaction of agreement and approval of each of Defede’s points, and her subsequent answer on being a lobbyist, were deleted from the original video.
Being a Lobbyist
Dandiya made a valiant effort to try to distance her past work as a corporate lobbyist from that of a "full-time corporate lobbyist."
"I was registered as a lobbyist because anyone who's doing any work, having any conversation with school systems, or any kind of public system, had to register as a lobbyist. That is very different from the work that full-time corporate lobbyists do. So, out of an abundance of caution, everyone who was doing the innovative work that I was doing in education, healthcare, and more had to register as a lobbyist..." said Dandiya.
Apple, Inc is a corporation. Dandiya was a registered lobbyist for Apple. Dandiya was a "full-time corporate lobbyist."
In response to our request for comment, Askar for Congress campaign manager Anthony Bustamante referred to Dandiya as a "silver spoon-fed Socialist."
"Socialist Pia Dandiya and her Socialist Majority PAC are hypocrites. While they continue to propagate lie after lie about businessman Casey Askar, they are now relying on compromised and unreliable news outlets to cover up for her blatant hypocrisy," said Bustamante. "Pia Dandiya is a silver spoon-fed Socialist who was a corporate lobbyist for Data Center-loving Apple, is a millionaire, and lives in a $ 4.5 million home in Palm Beach. Those are the facts."
The "Socialist Majority PAC" Bustamante mentions is really the Democratic Party's House Majority PAC (HMP) that has dropped millions of dollars against Askar. In one of their ads against Askar, the HMP inaccurately states that Askar opposes middle-class tax cuts on his website.
The assertion against Askar is false. The campaign website does not mention that Askar is against middle-class tax cuts, just the opposite.
Dandiya calls Askar's claim that she is against those middle-class tax cuts. That claim is accurate.
Dandiya is on record of opposing the One Big Beautiful Bill, and pushing for increasing taxes. The legislative measure that slashed taxes for everyday Americans was recently signed into law by President Donald Trump. The Bipartisan Policy Center confirms that middle-class tax cuts.
Askar has recently introduced his "Cut the Gas Tax" and "Boost the Child Tax Credit" congressional initiatives.
WATCHING
In the video below, we show the edited version that segways into Defede asking Dandiya about Data Centers and where she stands on them.
We also uploaded the original video captured from the CBSNews.com website showing the deleted segment of the interview.
