ABC chief Washington correspondent Jonathan Karl took his book tour to CBS and Thursday’s edition of The Late Show with Stephen Colbert because if you are a liberal media personality with an anti-Trump book to sell that is simply what you do. During the interview, Karl told Colbert that he wrote the book to preempt arguments from the Trump Campaign that a second Trump term is desirable because of his first term record on the economy and foreign policy.
Against the backdrop of January 6, Colbert wondered, “Why do you think he has such a lasting grip on a party that had many opportunities to end the specter of him, whether it had been either impeachment or just if Kevin McCarthy hadn't gone down there and kissed the ring.”
After noting that at one point Trump actually trailed Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis in the polls, Karl theorized, “There's anxiety in the country. People have economic anxiety. There’s discontent with Joe Biden and I think there's some superficially-- a sense like “look, if only we can only go back to four years ago, the world was relatively at peace. Inflation was low.”
Worried that such thinking may lead people back to Trump, Karl continued, “I think there is some of that and that's why I wrote this book because if people are going to go into this next election thinking about that, they also need to be thinking not just about what Trump was, but what he is now in what he is proposing and planning to do, what a second Trump Administration would look like and I don't think people have come to terms with that at all.”
According to Karl, what Trump is “proposing and planning” is a retribution campaign that sounds like it is coming out of the “Third Reich.” Such rhetoric and admissions from one of ABC’s top reporters raise obvious questions about the network’s ability to cover the upcoming election should Trump clinch the nomination.
Here is a transcript for the November 16-taped show:
CBS The Late Show with Stephen Colbert
11/17/2023
12:11 AM ET
STEPHEN COLBERT: Why do you think he has such a lasting grip on a party that had many opportunities to end the specter of him, whether it had been either impeachment or just if Kevin McCarthy hadn't gone down there and kissed the ring.
JONATHAN KARL: Yeah, I mean there’s a lot that. First of all, it's important to remember, less than a year ago he was trailing Ron DeSantis in polls. In one Wall Street Journal poll and somewhere by 20 points or so.
COLBERT: It was flipped, just a year ago.
KARL: Yes. Yes, so it wasn’t a total—but, I think part of what's happened is people look back. There's anxiety in the country. People have economic anxiety. There’s discontent with Joe Biden and I think there's some superficially-- a sense like “look, if only we can only go back to four years ago, the world was relatively at peace. Inflation was low. Everything was--" I think there is some of that and that's why I wrote this book because if people are going to go into this next election thinking about that, they also need to be thinking not just about what Trump was, but what he is now in what he is proposing and planning to do, what a second Trump Administration would look like and I don't think people have come to terms with that at all.
