With Don Lemon taking some vacation, CNN Tonight has featured New Day co-host Chris Cuomo, so Wednesday’s show went as well as you’d expect with liberal propaganda, a full defense of Jim Acosta after being thrashed by Stephen Miller, and unchallenged fake news by April Ryan.
Let’s first take Cuomo’s first minute or so, because that in of itself could serve as a piece worthy of ridicule. The show started with a live shot of the Statue of Liberty with Cuomo declaring: “There she is, lady liberty. A symbol of America's benevolent invitation.”
“Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But the new White House policy on immigrants calls that promise into doubt. Let's take into question of who exactly we are and what this country is about,” Cuomo continued.
Just like many of his comrades throughout the day, Cuomo acted as if the poem by Emma Lazarus sets the country’s immigration policies alongside the Constitution or any other law. And this is the same industry that sides with liberal judicial activists when it comes to the U.S. Constitution being an ever-evolving document. But a poem is rock solid?
Referring to the President, Cuomo added:
He proposes changing the signature promise of our country to welcome those in need by creating a merit-based system that would have kept people like me, my family and many of you from ever being here. When CNN's Jim Acosta put these concerns to White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, it got heated.
Once video replaying a significant portion of the debate ended, Cuomo seemed disgusted with Miller as he implored viewers like Acosta was riding high horse:
Let's just put the theater of the absurd to the side for a moment and get to the main point. The words, the poem was added later, Miller said. The words being the signature promise of this country from the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. Of course they were added later. The pedestal on which the words were placed came after the gift of the statue.
Cuomo must have been auditioning for a speechwriter position if his brother and Democratic New York Governor Andrew Cuomo runs for president as he proclaimed that the President’s plan “would brush aside America's greatest strength, the diversity of people who have sacrificed to come here with nothing except a passion of purpose to make better lives and to make this country great.”
“They're not just words added later. They are a solemn vow that was supposed to endure forever. So let's talk about what this policy could mean...You know, I got where you were going with this. Who are we? What is our definitional premise about who we want in this country,” Cuomo wondered to Acosta.
Acosta responded that it wasn’t exactly “a highly skilled performance, if I could borrow a term there from the president's immigration policy on the part of Stephen Miller.” Two words, Jim: Fake news.
When you’re granted airtime on an hourly basis to defend yourself while your colleagues state their support, you’ve lost the debate.
“It was very much attack the messenger and, you know, who would have thought that the Statue of Liberty doesn't mean what the Statue of Liberty means because a poem was attached to it later on and wasn't originally inscribed with those words. I think most Americans understand, Chris, what the Statue of Liberty is all about. It's odd to see the White House, the United States of America try to redefine what the Statue of Liberty means,” Acosta foolishly stated.
So, Acosta conceded that he didn’t have his facts right about the Statue of Liberty poem. But no matter! Acosta simply moved the goal posts on the debate, which is what the left always does when they’re losing, have lost an argument, or looking for more out of their adversaries.
Fake news was referenced at the top as something that transpired during CNN Tonight thanks to Ryan’s foolish claim about the level of decorum she had seen at a White House briefing room:
CUOMO: I saw the look on your face there, April. What was this about for you? Where are we in terms of the level of discourse between the free media and the White House?
APRIL RYAN: Well, the level of discourse today, it reached a new low when -- especially when he laid into Jim saying he was ignorant. I've never heard anything like that from a White House principal in that room.
Speaking of the word “ignorant,” a basic Google search would yield this result about Jay Carney using that word to refer to people critical of ObamaCare.
Here’s the story that now-Washington Examiner writer Becket Adams wrote on July 10, 2013 when he worked for The Blaze:
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Wednesday that critics of the Obama administration’s decision to delay the so-called “employer mandate” in the Affordable Care Act are being “willfully ignorant.”
Mr. Carney’s comments were made in reference to Republican criticism and Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) saying of the delay: “This was the law. How can they change the law?”
“People who suggest that there is anything unusual about the delaying of a deadline in the implementation of a complicated law are either sticking their heads in the sand are just willfully ignorant about past precedent,” Jay Carney said.
Whoops. For someone like Ryan who’s been in the White House press corps for decades, one would think she’d have more hindsight.
Cuomo eventually moved on to other topics (like the state of the West Wing under new chief of Staff John Kelly), but not before he gave Acosta and Ryan a brief pep talk: “Now, Jim Acosta, one of the things that you've got to love about you and April, you just #PressOn. Keep doing the job. Keep reporting. Keep getting it out there.”
Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from August 2's CNN Tonight:
CNN Tonight
August 2, 2017
10:00 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS CUOMO: There she is, lady liberty. A symbol of America's benevolent invitation. Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free. But the new White House policy on immigrants calls that promise into doubt. Let's take into question of who exactly we are and what this country is about. This is CNN Tonight. I'm Chris Cuomo in for Don Lemon. Here's the main point. There's a new White House proposal that seeks to cut the flow of immigrants, legal immigrants in half but it is how our president wants to do that that is a concern. He proposes changing the signature promise of our country to welcome those in need by creating a merit-based system that would have kept people like me, my family and many of you from ever being here. When CNN's Jim Acosta put these concerns to White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller, it got heated.
(....)
10:05 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: Let's just put the theater of the absurd to the side for a moment and get to the main point. The words, the poem was added later, Miller said. The words being the signature promise of this country from the poem The New Colossus by Emma Lazarus. Of course they were added later. The pedestal on which the words were placed came after the gift of the statue. But that's not what Miller was really trying to brush aside. He was trying to brush aside their significance. This isn't about calling illegal immigration or bad hombres, as the president likes to say. This is about changing not just how many but who gets to come in legally. Restrictions that would brush aside America's greatest strength, the diversity of people who have sacrificed to come here with nothing except a passion of purpose to make better lives and to make this country great. They're not just words added later. They are a solemn vow that was supposed to endure forever. So let's talk about what this policy could mean. Let's bring in CNN's Jim Acosta now along with CNN political analyst April Ryan. That was kind of a bizarre exchange. You know, I got where you were going with this. Who are we? What is our definitional premise about who we want in this country?
JIM ACOSTA: Right.
CUOMO: And Miller wanted to dance. You know, talking about numbers and what you know and don't know. But at bottom, what do you think this policy is about for the White House?
ACOSTA: Well, I'm not sure it was a highly skilled performance, if I could borrow a term there from the president's immigration policy on the part of Stephen Miller. It was very much attack the messenger and, you know, who would have thought that the Statue of Liberty doesn't mean what the Statue of Liberty means because a poem was attached to it later on and wasn't originally inscribed with those words. I think most Americans understand, Chris, what the Statue of Liberty is all about. It's odd to see the White House, the United States of America try to redefine what the Statue of Liberty means.
(....)
10:10 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: I saw the look on your face there, April. What was this about for you? Where are we in terms of the level of discourse between the free media and the White House?
APRIL RYAN: Well, the level of discourse today, it reached a new low when -- especially when he laid into Jim saying he was ignorant. I've never heard anything like that from a White House principal in that room.
(....)
10:12 p.m. Eastern
CUOMO: Now, Jim Acosta, one of the things that you've got to love about you and April, you just #PressOn. Keep doing the job. Keep reporting. Keep getting it out there.
