On Memorial Day, CNN's New Day seemed to commemorate the occasion partly by bringing on a veteran who is running for Congress as a Democrat as co-host Alisyn Camerota gave New York's Pat Ryan a forum to promote banning what he calls "assault rifles."
In contrast with Republican guests who are more likely to experience a back and forth debate, Camerota only mildly pushed back with one contrarian question with no followup when he dodged answering it.
At 8:47 a.m. Eastern, the CNN host set up the segment: "An Army veteran running for Congress in upstate New York is getting a lot of attention with a campaign ad that seems to defy some of the interests of his own possible gun rights constituents."
After running the ad which depicts children dressed as combat soldiers with Ryan commenting that the U.S. should either ban "assault weapons" or equip children to fight back against them, Camerota introduced her guest and began by posing: "So those are striking images. What's your goal with that ad?"
As Ryan argued in favor of an "assault weapons" ban, he commented at one point that "We know what the policy solutions are on this," leading Camerota to push back with the only time she questioned his premise calling for more gun control:
Do we? Because, you know, as you know -- I'm sure you get the pushback from the people who are real gun enthusiasts, you know: If you outlaw AR-15s, only outlaws will have AR-15s. I hear it all the time.
As the Democratic candidate did not answer the question posed and instead pivoted to claiming that such weapons should not be "on the streets," the CNN host failed to call him out for not answering the question and instead asked: "And you think that, in your district, which is a big hunting district, gun rights district, you think that you can win with that?"
In his response, Ryan made one of the standard gun control talking points that "assault rifles are designed to kill humans en masse," but Camerota failed to give any pushback like pointing out that AR-15s are used by some hunters, and that other hunting rifles are just as powerful as AR-15s but simply look different.
RYAN: I grew up there -- I grew up around responsible gun owners -- I understand what that's about. I understand that farmers need it on their farms. Hunters need guns to do what they need to do, but these are weapons -- assault rifles are designed purely to kill humans en masse, and I know that that's strong language, but that's the reality, and so that's where we have to draw the line.
And I think what people want to see right now on this -- I believe we do know what the policy solutions are. What we're lacking is the moral courage to stand up and do what's right, and that's why we put out this ad.
The CNN host then brought up the issue of a large number of veterans running for Congress and seemed surprised that just over half are running as Democrats as she posed: "As you said, you're an Iraq War veteran. There is a spate of veterans running for Congress this year in 2018. And, according to Politico, 51 percent of them are Democrats. What's going on?"
Camerota also failed to challenge him when he went a bit over the top and claimed that "this is the most existential crisis I have seen in our country." CNN could stand for Crisis News Network.
