Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's CNN Newsroom with Carol Costello to react to Sarah Palin's endorsement of Donald Trump in the GOP presidential race, liberal CNN political commentator Van Jones declared that it was "horrifying" to see the two together, and asserted that "Tina Fey couldn't have done a more incoherent, inarticulate sort of caricature of Sarah Palin than she did of herself."
And then, amidst a presidential race in which there is momentum for a socialist winning the Democratic presidential nomination, Jones saw extremism on the Republican side as complained that, instead of tagging GOP candidates as "insiders versus outsiders," that "we should have from the very beginning said it was the extremists versus the more responsible Republicans."
Moments later, the liberal CNN commentator worried: "And this circus wing of the party, I think, is a very dangerous development in American politics because who knows what they would do in office?"
At 10:11 a.m. ET, host Costello set up the segment by showing viewers how the left-leaning New York Daily News and the right-leaning New York Post reacted to the Palin endorsement on their front pages:
So I think the New York tabloids sort of sums up the split between what conservatives think about Sarah Palin and what liberals do. Hence the Daily News. See it right there? "I'm with Stupid," I would say that's a liberal thought process. And on the more conservative side, this is the New York Post: "Lady and the Trump." So, Van, I want to start with you to get a different perspective. So are Democrats sitting back and saying, "This is fantastic"?
Jones derided the former Alaska governor as he began:
Well, I mean, it's more of a horrifying. It really did look like an SNL skit yesterday. I mean, Tina Fey couldn't have done a more incoherent, inarticulate sort of caricature of Sarah Palin than she did of herself. And to see somebody who wants to be the commander in chief standing next to her acting like she was saying things that actually made good sense, that was kind of horrifying.
He continued:
But there's something else going on here. Up until now, we've fallen into this thing of the insiders versus the outsiders. The reality is, we should have from the very beginning said it was the extremists versus the more responsible Republicans, but we fell into that trap.
Now, it turns out there's a split among the so-called outsiders, the extremists, between the doctrinaire, down the line, principled conservatives like Ted Cruz who, for better or worse, at least has a coherent ideology, versus a celebrity populist wing that's kind of a goulash of various ideas that don't go together, basically united by a kind of a feeling and kind of enthusiasm and kind of anger. And Sarah Palin picks sides. She is clearly part of a celebrity circus wing of the Republican party which may, in fact, be the biggest wing.
A bit later, after right-leaning guest Ben Ferguson reacted to Costello's question about why Palin is not appearing with Trump in Iowa today, the day after her endorsement, Jones took another shot at her as he added:
It's surprising that Sarah Palin is somewhat unpredictable, surprising that maybe she's kind of gone rogue? That's her whole schtick. And so, yeah, anybody who's kind of expecting Sarah Palin to do anything rational or predictable is going to be disappointed, but they just haven't been paying attention. Don't forget, she quit being governor in the middle of a term because she didn't like the way she was being treated in the press and because she wanted to make more money as a reality TV star. So there is a celebrity populist wing of the party.
He then paid a backhanded compliment to Ted Cruz to bolster his attack on Trump and Palin. Jones:
You know, Ted Cruz does deserve some credit for at least being willing to stick with his ideas, even in Iowa, saying I want to be able to strip away your ability to have a livelihood here because I'm a conservative. At least he's consistent. Donald Trump is all over the place, and so is Sarah Palin. And this circus wing of the party, I think, is a very dangerous development in American politics because who knows what they would do in office?
