For decades, CNN used the stentorian voice of James Earl Jones to proclaim its majestic slogan -- "THIS...is CNN." If that wasn't already in retirement, they can bury it now.
The other day I posted an article about how reprehensible I thought it was that CNN was giving a “Town Hall” to Trump – and that was written before he’d been found guilty of sexual assault. And before I knew that the audience would be made up of only Republicans and independent voters who leaned right. I didn’t watch the event, needless-to-say. Though I did see a few clips, and read a lot of commentary about it. So, while I didn’t see enough of it to know how it all went, I did see and learn enough to know that it confirmed my worst suspicions. Because my worst suspicions had a really low bar to meet – and it met them. To start with, this wasn’t a “Town Hall.” An actual Town Hall opens its doors to the town, anyone there is welcome to come, whatever their politics, free to ask questions. This, however, was an invited audience with no intention to have the mix of a town, but rather be essentially Republican. It was only a “Town Hall” because that’s the name that CNN gave it – sort of like the old Republican “Clean Air Act” which actually undercut the environment. This was a Trump rally, which CNN willingly gave over to him. Gave over to him the day after he was found guilty of sexual assault. Sixteen months after he directed an assault on the American government and democracy. And a year-and-a-half after he began trying to undermine democracy by falsely claiming with zero evidence and 60 lost court cases that the election was stolen, a lie he has continued to this day. And CNN gave him the microphone and said, “Go ahead, lie some more. Undermine democracy to your heart’s content. The floor is yours. Here’s the key to CNN. Turn the lights out when you’re done.” One of the clips I did see was Trump swearing on his children’s lives – something he insisted he never, ever does, which I suspect is a lie, though it doesn’t matter, although it may to his children since their lives are now at risk because what he said next was a lie – he swore on his children's lives that he DOES NOT KNOW who E. Jean Carroll is, DOES NOT KNOW who that woman is, he swears, he swears on his children, he never saw her in his life, he never met her, it’s so outrageous, she’s a nut, he NEVER MET her ever in his life – except,,,except, well, you see, the problem here is that there's a photo of him and his then-wife laughing together with E. Jean Carroll and her then-husband, who Trump recognizes, perhaps from TV, but he does know who he is. And who he is, is E. Jean Carroll’s husband, who is standing right next to him, everyone laughing along with Trump. It's not a photo op with a random stranger. It's two couples together. Having a laugh together. At an NBC party. And when Trump swore on his children’s lives that he DOES NOT KNOW her, that he has NEVER MET her, he actually, really knows that he’s in the photo with her and her husband laughing with Trump and his wife – because he’s testified to it in a deposition. And there was no push-back on this during the CNN Trump Rally. Moderator Kaitlin Collins let it slide. As the Republican-based audience there laughed it up with Trump ridiculing Ms. Carroll, asking what kind of woman does "hanky-panky" in a department store, once again defaming the women who a jury unanimously voted Trump guilty of sexually abusing. And guilty of defaming. And there was no follow-up, "Just to clarify about the trial, but E. Jean Carroll didn't sue you because she was trying to seduce you, trying to have 'hanky-panky' with you, but because she swore under oath that you had sexually abused her. And to be clear, a jury of six men and three women unanimously agreed that's what happened and found you guilty." In fairness to Ms. Collins, she did try to fact-check Trump in real time throughout the evening. But unfortunately that's not enough when you're given the assignment of hosting a Trump Rally, with a fervent Trump crowd cheering him on and booing you. Probably no one short of Mike Wallace or Jon Stewart would have been able to hold their own under the one-sided, pathological lying conditions CNN created. (Or also perhaps Mehdi Hassan.) And even they would have been hard-pressed with an auditorium booing and hissing at them. And CNN knew all this, because, while they’re irresponsible, they’re not total idiots. They know who Trump is. They know what he’s done. They know who they invited. They know the unanimous jury verdict said Trump was guilty of sexual abuse. And they also know democracy is on the ballot in 2024. No, CNN is not total idiots. Just partial ones. Because it’s appeared for a while that they’re trying to position themselves away from the center, since that isn’t working for them, and coddling a touch more to the right. And this effort providing Republicans with a Trump Rally was clearly to draw far-right viewers to watch CNN and hopefully get them to stick around. Except that far-right viewers hate CNN. In fact, I'd almost go so far as to say far-right viewers HATE CNN more than they do MSNBC. They dismiss MSNBC as "libs" and hate it for that, but they seem to viscerally hate CNN on a guttural level. And CNN has to know this. Yet they think they'll win them over. In the end, this event last night, despite being a Trump Rally, wasn’t about Trump. We know who he is. This was about CNN. And we now know more clearly who they are. As we remember who they once were.
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AuthorRobert J. Elisberg is a political commentator, screenwriter, novelist, tech writer and also some other things that I just tend to keep forgetting. Feedspot Badge of Honor
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