On Monday morning, CNN's New Day show continued its crusade for more gun control as it not only excluded conservatives from taking part in its panel discussions on the matter, but it actually utilized the all-liberal foursome of Andrew Gillum, Bakari Sellers, April Ryan, and Angela Rye to discuss the issue not only during its first hour, but again during the third hour of the three-hour show.
Last Wednesday, the show had similarly excluded conservatives from all its discussions of their frustrations with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell over the issue.
The group also repeated discredited myths about issues like the fictional "Charleston loophole" and the alleged overwhelming support for universal background checks.
Picking up on President Donald Trump recently making the argument that there is already a substantial background check process for most gun sales -- alluding to those by licensed gun dealers -- co-host Alisyn Camerota lamented at the top of the 6:00 a.m. hour: "President Trump seems to be retreating in his calls for increased background checks on gun purchases. The President told reporters he believes background checks are very strong. With Congress in recess, there has been no movement in gun legislation following the deadly mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton and Gilroy."
She then repeated the misleading claims overstating support for universal background checks as she added: "A new national poll shows Americans want action, An overwhelming majority want background checks expanded."
After the group began by discussing President Trump dismissing the likelihood of an economic recession, the same group was brought back after a commercial break, and co-host Camerota again showed disappointment that Trump might not support more gun laws. Camerota:
Once again, this is a pattern we have seen repeated over and over. There will be a horrific mass shooting or a school shooting -- there has been Parkland, there has been Las Vegas, there has been what happened two weeks ago. The President's gut reaction via Twitter will be. "We need to raise the age to buy guns, we need to ban bump stocks, we need to do expanded background checks, and then something happens over the next few days, and he changes his tune.
Instead of having a discussion about the merits of whether any of the new restrictions proposed mostly by Democrats would actually be effective, the panel was mostly fixated on the disappointment to them of President Trump backing off of earlier suggestions he might support new gun control.
The only specific example given of a mass shooting that any panel member argued could have been prevented by new laws was actually based on misinformation as Sellers repeated the debunked myth that white supremacist Dylan Roof would have been barred from purchasing his gun due to his prior criminal record if the background check had been allowed to take longer.
Rye suggested Trump should want to enact more gun control to make up for him allegedly having "close connections to white supremacists," and Gillum called the President "feckless" on the issue.
Sellers declared that the Republican party "has been purchased by the NRA for a very long period of time."
A couple of hours later, the same panel was brought back to similarly discuss the same issues again shortly after 8:00 a.m. In this segment, Rye notably hinted that pro-life Republicans are being hypocritical in refusing to support more gun laws to prevent people from being killed even though there is an argument that more gun restrictions leads to more violent crime, including murder, because victims are less able to defend themselves. Rye:
Gun rights are conflicting with human rights, the right to live. So for all of the people out there especially on the conservative side of the aisle, who say they are pro-life, you should be pro-life when it comes to gun killings as well. So where are you? Where are you when it's time to stand up for the right to live when people are being killed.
This exclusion of conservative voices from the discussion comes at a time when the network has been getting attention for increasingly sidelining its paid conservative contributors.
