Even though CNN has spent years misleading its viewers about the racial breakdown of suspects who are killed by police officers, CNN's New Day show on Wednesday complained that President Donald Trump was being "misleading" by pointing out that more whites than African Americans are killed.
The show which rarely includes any of the network's conservative contributors even gave liberal contributor Bakari Sellers an unchallenged forum to label the President's statement as a "lie."
Since June 1, New Day has given attention to 11 suspects who were killed by law enforcement, which also includes several older cases. Seven victims were black, and four were Hispanic, while other racial groups were ignored entirely.
But, according to the Washington Post, in that same time period, there were 27 whites, 12 blacks, 11 Hispanics and one Asian who were killed in shooting incidents. The only one found by the Post to be unarmed was a white woman, Hannah Fizer, who was killed on June 13 in Missouri.
Since January 1 of this year, there have been 11 unarmed whites killed, seven unarmed blacks, three Hispanics and one Asian, but viewers would never get a hint of the actual racial breakdown based on CNN's agenda-driven -- rather than reality-driven -- coverage, which is consistent with how it has handled police violence over the past couple of years.
On Wednesday's show, after playing a clip of President Trump recalling that more whites are killed, CNN correspondent Joe Johns ironically complained:
JOE JOHNS: Okay, so that's misleading. It is true that more white people than black people are killed by police, but it's the frequency that's the issue when you account for population -- 2.5 percent of blacks are killed more often than whites in the United States. This is all rhetoric the President has used before, quite frankly, and it goes all the way back to the 2016 election -- the kind of language that the President thinks appeals to his base.
A bit later, CNN co-host Alisyn Camerota derided President Trump as not being good at math:
ALISYN CAMEROTA: He is really bad at math … this is the same confusion that he has over testing -- where he doesn't talk about the proportion, which we all know. Black men die 2.8 times more than white men at the hands of police, but, again, President Trump just likes to talk about the overall number and thinks that that's somehow, you know, dispenses with the argument.
In the next hour, Camerota went to Sellers and asked for his response to Trump's statement, leading the liberal commentator to complain that it was a "lie" not because the statement is inaccurate but because the number of blacks killed is disproportionately higher.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The response was a lie -- that's what it was. What we do know and what statistics show is that African Americans are three and a half more times more likely to die from use of force than white people in this country. They're more likely to incur use of force than white people in this country, and we have a serious problem.
Ironically, former liberal CNN contributor Marc Lamont Hill, perhaps aware of FBI crime statistics from the Obama administration, admitted recently in a debate with conservative activist Candace Owens that there is not a "racial disparity" in the killing of suspects although he still insisted non-lethal excessive force is disproportionately high against blacks.
It was lost on all the New Day regulars that their own show misleads viewers by failing to select an accurate racial breakdown of which police killings it covers so that they do not leave the impression that cops are reckless in dealing with black suspects but careful in arresting whites, making police violence look like more of a racial issue than it actually is.
This episode of New Day was sponsored by Voltaren and Liberty Mutual. Their contact information is linked.
Below are transcripts of relevant portions of the Wednesday, July 15, New Day on CNN. Click "expand" to read more.
New Day
7/15/2020
6:08 a.m. Eastern
CATHERINE HERRIDGE, CBS NEWS CORRESPONDENT (from Wednesday's CBS This Morning): Let's talk about George Floyd. You said George Floyd's death was a terrible thing.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Terrible.
HERRIDGE: Why are African Americans still dying at the hands of law enforcement in this country?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: And so are white people. So are white people. What a terrible question to ask. So are white people. More white people, by the way -- more white people.
JOE JOHNS: Okay, so that's misleading. It is true that more white people than black people are killed by police, but it's the frequency that's the issue when you account for population -- 2.5 percent of blacks are killed more often than whites in the United States. This is all rhetoric the President has used before, quite frankly, and it goes all the way back to the 2016 election -- the kind of language that the President thinks appeals to his base.
(...)
6:32 a.m.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: He is really bad at math, Errol. I mean, this is just -- this is the same confusion that he has over testing -- where he doesn't talk about the proportion, which we all know. Black men die 2.8 times more than white men at the hands of police, but, again, President Trump just likes to talk about the overall number and thinks that that's somehow, you know, dispenses with the argument.
(...)
7:28 a.m.
CAMEROTA: What was that? What was that response? He was very angry about even getting the question.
BAKARI SELLERS, CNN POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: The response was a lie -- that's what it was. What we do know and what statistics show is that African Americans are three and a half more times more likely to die from use of force than white people in this country. They're more likely to incur use of force than white people in this country, and we have a serious problem.
I can honestly tell you that if George Floyd was white, then he would probably still be alive. I have not seen an image of a knee on the back of the neck of a black person in this country for eight minutes and 46 seconds, and so I'm not going to say that police brutality does not happen to white people -- I would never dare say that. I would just say that there has become a high incidence and occurrence of this towards people of color that results in death and fatality.
