On Wednesday's Amanpour & Co. on PBS and CNN International, host Christiane Amanpour asked if President Donald Trump is a "danger to the people of the United States and to the world" as she spoke with former Senator Heidi Heitkamp and gave the North Dakota Democrat a forum to be critical of the Trump administration.
Amanpour did little to press her Democratic guest from the right apart from asking her to respond to a couple of Trump administration statements defending their handling of the pandemic. The more loaded questions were posed from the left.
After Heitkamp argued that the administration is not in a position to "brag" about their handling of the crisis, Amanpour followed up by hinting that more political figures should declare that "the emperor (Trump) has no clothes." Amanpour commented: "Certainly the President brags every single day about what a great job that they're doing. And it's remarkable how few politicians, obviously considering the seriousness of this pandemic, are willing to say the emperor has no clothes."
She then brought up a question that was asked to President Trump by New York magazine's Olivia Nuzzi in which she compared the death toll of the pandemic to that of the Vietnam war:
CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: It took a journalist in the White House yesterday to ask the President the following question about the results of his leadership?
OLIVIA NUZZI, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: If an American President loses more Americans in six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be reelected?
After a soundbite of President Trump's response, Amanpour posed:
AMANPOUR: So that will be the President's and his people's rationale -- we did the right thing -- we took the big decisions -- we closed flights from China. Is that enough? Do you buy that rationale because that is the rationale from the administration?
A bit later, after Heitkamp described the administration's reaction to the pandemic as a "failure," Amanpour followed up:
AMANPOUR: It's even worse than that, Senator, with respect. They had the playbooks -- the national security person wrote it, had it. They had it -- all the playbooks -- they just didn't take it off the shelf. And that's my last question to you. Do you think, finally, that this President is a danger to the people of the United States and to the world?
She then cited never Trump Republican former Arizona Senator Jeff Flake's views on Trump's bid for reelection:
AMANPOUR: Certainly one of your former colleagues -- Senator Jeff Flake, Republican himself of Arizona -- has said that he thinks so. And he thinks a sound defeat -- not just a defeat, a sound defeat of the President in November is vital to save not just the country, but also the Republican party. What do you make of that?
Below is a transcript of relevant portions of the Wednesday, April 29, Amanpour & Co. on PBS and CNN International:
Amanpour and Co.
4/29/2020
FORMER SENATOR HEIDI HEITKAMP (D-ND): But I think right now no one in the United States government should be bragging about the results that we're now experiencing, given the death toll and the number of cases that we have of COVID-19.
And yet they do brag, Senator. Certainly the President brags every single day about what a great job that they're doing. And it's remarkable how few politicians, obviously considering the seriousness of this pandemic, are willing to say the emperor has no clothes. It took a journalist in the White House yesterday to ask the President the following question about the results of his leadership?
OLIVIA NUZZI, NEW YORK MAGAZINE: If an American President loses more Americans in six weeks than died in the entirety of the Vietnam War, does he deserve to be reelected?
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Yeah, we've lost a lot of people, but if you look at what original projections were -- 2.2 million -- we're probably headed to 60,000, 70,000 -- it's far too many, one person is too many for this -- and I think we made a lot of really good decisions. The big decision was closing the border or doing the ban on people coming in from China obviously other than American citizens which had to come in.
AMANPOUR: So that will be the President's and his people's rationale -- we did the right thing -- we took the big decisions -- we closed flights from China. Is that enough? Do you buy that rationale because that is the rationale from the administration?
(…)
FORMER SENATOR HEITKAMP: And I think it's a failure not only of domestic policy, but this is being a failure of our foreign policy.
AMANPOUR: It's even worse than that, Senator, with respect. They had the playbooks -- the national security person wrote it, had it. They had it -- all the playbooks -- they just didn't take it off the shelf. And that's my last question to you. Do you think, finally, that this President is a danger to the people of the United States and to the world?
Certainly one of your former colleagues -- Senator Jeff Flake, Republican himself of Arizona -- has said that he thinks so. And he thinks a sound defeat -- not just a defeat, a sound defeat of the President in November is vital to save not just the country, but also the Republican party. What do you make of that?
