Less than a week after her tense exchange with White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer, April Ryan was hired on Monday to become CNN’s newest political analyst, sharing a title with other liberals like Gloria Borger and David Gergen.
The Wrap and Politico Playbook broke the news early Monday morning and the former outlet spent almost the remainder of the piece touting her run-ins with Spicer and President Donald Trump.
Ryan recently stated that she’s been in the White House press corps since Bill Clinton’s second term, so why the interest in her now? There’s no way that Ryan’s hassling of the Republican administration after playing nice with Obama had anything to do with the new gig! [That was sarcasm.]
Let’s rewind back to March 28 when Ryan smirked at Spicer for not looking “so happy” and opined that the administration needs to “revamp its image” considering all the Russia investigations and the ObamaCare repeal/replace failure.
Ryan’s entire questioning was a series of hot takes, but what people now (and will) remember was how Spicer told Ryan not to shake her head at him. The media uproar was swift as Ryan repeatedly claimed in her media tour that she doesn’t “have an agenda.” Robert Gibbs did the same thing in 2011, but that hasn’t seen much attention because it doesn’t fit their narrative.
CNN came to her defense with Gloria Borger swooning over Hillary Clinton touting Ryan followed by a March 29 victory lap on New Day courtesy of Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.
Let’s dig deeper into how her stock has grown in the last year, shall we?
In Trump’s marathon February 16 press conference, Ryan pestered him about meeting with the Congressional Black Caucus. Trump threw the question back at her by suggesting Ryan “set up the meeting” because they’re “friends of yours.”
Ryan seemed deeply offended by this, but it’s pretty pathetic of her to argue she’s not friends with any of them or staff members (especially considering her outlet).
On February 21, Ryan dabbled in fake news, citing no evidence when she told Spicer that Trump thinks “white America” built the country. When she was called out, she played the race card.
A week and a half before her Spicer exchange that’s made the American Urban Radio Networks correspondent a darling in the media (from The New York Times to CNN to MSNBC), she displayed a stunning lack of understanding when it comes to how investments and savings work.
When Rachel Maddow crashed and burned with releasing two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax returns, Ryan used the $100 million Trump made that year to claim he’s lying about being a billionaire. Just think about that.
Before Trump became President, Ryan uncorked some loony takes. In July 2016, she hurled charges of racism against Republicans for “com[ing] up and jump[ing]” then-President Obama whenever he talks about race.
12 days later, she engaged in conspiracy theories by suggesting that Congressman Steve King (R-Iowa) is mentally disabled and doesn’t understand how racist America’s history has been.
It’s been quite a time to be CNN with the hiring of former Obama administration officials and their besties in the media. In addition to Ryan, CNN hired former Obama hacks Lisa Monaco and John Kirby as a neutral analysts for national security and military matters, respectively.
Although not a Democratic administration flack, it capped off this hiring spree with former Bush administration CIA director Michael Hayden.
