Upon hearing CNN's Wolf Blitzer formally project that Joe Biden is the president-elect, Jake Tapper channeled former President Gerald Ford and declared our long national nightmare to be over. A sentiment shared by former Obama official Van Jones who cried his way through his thankful reaction that President Trump has been defeated.
Tapper began by throwing some crumbs to Trump supporters, "It is the end, the end of a tumultuous presidency, a time of some accomplishments, no question, a time where many Americans throughout the country and in shuttered steel towns and rural America, they felt for the first time, they felt heard, which is important."
But then, he went blame Trump for all bad things:
It has also been a time of extreme divisions. Many of the divisions caused and exacerbated by President Trump himself. It's been a time of several significant and utterly avoidable failures, most tragically, of course, the unwillingness to respect facts and science and do everything that can be done to save lives during a pandemic. It has been a time where truth and fact were treated with disdain.
It was also, according to Tapper, "a time of cruelty where official inhumanities such as child separation became the official shameful policy of the United States. But now the Trump presidency is coming to an end, to an end, with so many squandered opportunities and ruined potential, but also an era of just plain meanness."
Finally, Tapper concluded, "It must be said to paraphrase President Ford, for tens of millions of our fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over."
The panel then shifted to talk about Biden, but a crying Van Jones returned to the end of a nightmare theme:
Well it’s easier to be a parent this morning, it's easier to be a dad. It's easier to tell your kids character matters, it matters. Tell them the truth matters. Being a good person matters. And it's easier for a lot of people. If you're Muslim in this country, you don't have to worry if the president doesn't want you here. If you're an immigrant, you don't have to worry if the president’s going to be happy to have snatched away or send dreamers back for no reason.
After tying Trump to the death of George Floyd, Jones then tried to blame Trump for people who harass other people at Walmart:
Every day you're waking up and getting tweets and you just don’t know and you're going to the store and people who have been afraid to show their racism are getting nastier and nastier to you and you're worried about your kids and you're worried about your sister, can she just go to Walmart and get back into her car without somebody saying something to her."
He concluded with:
This is a big deal for us just to be able to get some peace and have a chance for a reset and the character of the country matters and being a good man matters. I just want my sons to look at this, to look at this. It's easy to do it the cheap way and get away with stuff, but it comes back around. It comes back around and it's a good thing for this country. I'm sorry for the people who lost, for them it's not a good day. But for a whole lot of people it's a good day.
This segment was sponsored by DirecTV.
Here is a transcript for the November 7 show:
CNN
CNN 2020 Election Coverage
11:25 PM ET
WOLF BLITZER: Again, CNN projects Joe Biden will become the 46th president of the United States. Jake, he is now President-elect Joe Biden.
JAKE TAPPER: What a moment in history. We have all been waiting on the edges of our seats since Tuesday. It is the end, the end of a tumultuous presidency, a time of some accomplishments, no question, a time where many Americans throughout the country and in shuttered steel towns and rural America, they felt for the first time, they felt heard, which is important. But it is also, Wolf, it has also been a time of extreme divisions. Many of the divisions caused and exacerbated by President Trump himself. It's been a time of several significant and utterly avoidable failures, most tragically, of course, the unwillingness to respect facts and science and do everything that can be done to save lives during a pandemic. It has been a time where truth and fact were treated with disdain. It was a time of cruelty where official inhumanities such as child separation became the official shameful policy of the United States. But now the Trump presidency is coming to an end, to an end, with so many squandered opportunities and ruined potential, but also an era of just plain meanness. It must be said to paraphrase President Ford, for tens of millions of our fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over.…
11:32
VAN JONES: Well it’s easier to be a parent this morning, it's easier to be a dad. It's easier to tell your kids character matters, it matters. Tell them the truth matters. Being a good person matters. And it's easier for a lot of people. If you're Muslim in this country, you don't have to worry if the president doesn't want you here. If you're an immigrant, you don't have to worry if the president’s going to be happy to have snatched away or send dreamers back for no reason. It's vindication for a lot of people who have really suffered, you know, the "I can't breathe," that wasn't just George Floyd, that was a lot of people have felt they couldn't breathe. Every day you're waking up and getting tweets and you just don’t know and you're going to the store and people who have been afraid to show their racism are getting nastier and nastier to you and you're worried about your kids and you're worried about your sister, can she just go to Walmart and get back into her car without somebody saying something to her. And you've spent so much of your life energy just trying to hold it together and this is a big deal for us just to be able to get some peace and have a chance for a reset and the character of the country matters and being a good man matters. I just want my sons to look at this, to look at this. It's easy to do it the cheap way and get away with stuff, but it comes back around. It comes back around and it's a good thing for this country. I'm sorry for the people who lost, for them it's not a good day. But for a whole lot of people it's a good day.
