In the wake of Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander announcing he's a no on witnesses, Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame joined CNN Newsroom co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto on Friday for his usual hyperbolic denunciations of Republicans and bad Watergate analogies.
Sciutto began by asking why Republicans were willing to turn on President Nixon, but not on Trump, "Of course the key to Watergate was that you had a handful of Republican senators who in effect turned on the president. The weight of the evidence was too much. You have not seen that here. Why?"
The correct answer would have been because Nixon committed actual crimes and the articles of impeachment would have contained actual crimes, whereas the ones for Trump contained vague politically-defined ones that required the House to make assumptions about Trump's motives.
Such nuances escaped Bernstein, who is really just a liberal pundit at this point, "Well, first of all let's look at what Watergate was because it was about a criminal president who acted as a tyrant. And what we have here now is the Senate of the United States through the Republican leadership and membership has now joined hands with a tyrant."
Continuing with the tyranny line, he accused Prof. Alan Dershowitz of making an "excuse for tyranny" and advancing a "cult of Trump."
He concluded his diatribe by lamenting that Republicans were not "heroes" like they were in the 70s, "So totally different situation that happened in Watergate because in Watergate, the real heroes were Republicans who stopped tyranny."
None of Bernstein's over-dramatic ramblings prevented Harlow from ending the segment by singing his praises, " Such important perspective he has."
Here is a transcript for the January 31 show:
CNN
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
9:36 AM ET
JIM SCIUTTO: Of course the key to Watergate was that you had a handful of Republican senators who in effect turned on the president. The weight of the evidence was too much. You have not seen that here. Why?
CARL BERNSTEIN: Well, first of all let's look at what Watergate was because it was about a criminal president who acted as a tyrant. And what we have here now is the Senate of the United States through the Republican leadership and membership has now joined hands with a tyrant. The assertion that Professor Dershowitz made really is an excuse for tyranny. That the president cannot be checked by the Senate. So what we have, unlike the Nixon case is we now have a precedent that's been set especially if we are going to follow this new catechism of cult of Trump that professor Dershowitz has advanced, this catechism that you cannot abuse his power. So totally different situation that happened in Watergate because in Watergate, the real heroes were Republicans who stopped tyranny.
