Fighting a brave battle against CNN’s emotionally hysterical, overwhelmed, and triggered liberals after Tuesday’s Trump rally, CNN political commentator and former RNC official Mike Shields thoroughly lambasted his colleagues losing their minds for spending time “chiming in that we just think the President is insane” and deeming him mentally ill.
Shields faced harsh push back, including some fake news pushed by CNN Tonight host Don Lemon that no one on the air questioned whether President Trump himself was unstable but just his speech and behavior. Good luck trying to wrap your head around that one.
At roughly 12:40 a.m. Eastern on Wednesday, Shields calmly began by stating that “a piece of advice I would give everybody” in the media “is the President's spent a tremendous amount of time tonight criticizing the media” and there’s a reason for that.
“It’s right to hold him accountable, it’s right to fact check him but immediately after that when the conversation shifts into he's insane and he's unfit for office and he's lost his mind and we're doing psychoanalysis on television of the President, you're doing the work of — you’re doing his work for him. This is almost what he wants to see happen is that he criticizes the media and the media themselves are unhinged and start calling the President insane. I think that's a huge mistake,” Shields astutely explained.
Shields also called out CNN for not labeling the protesters clashing with police as “left-wing” and reemphasized that they’re making the President’s argument that the media are against him when they deem him “insane.”
Lemon seemed totally discombobulated, so Shields kept moving. Here’s a snippet:
And we can argue whether or not that's appropriate for him to do or not, but that’s a good conversation and veering off into he's insane sort of ends our credibility to criticize him because people now think just we're the ones that are sort losing it over his speech and that’s probably what he and his supporters want us to do.
Never Trump leader Rick Wilson re-upped the discussion from earlier (which my colleague Nick Fondacaro chronicled) that it’s fair to argue Trump is mentally ill and diagnose him as such, but Shields eventually hit back.
Taking note of how Congress should somehow do something to stop the President (read: remove him from office), Shields dropped more truth bombs:
Look, I mean, the other part of this, so where this is sort of leading is and I heard you guys saying this is that, you know, the Congress has to do thing about this. The American people elected the President, okay?. The media didn't elect him. Commentators didn't elect him. The Congress didn't elect him either and so before the Congress is going to do something like this, this is why we're jumping so ahead in this conversation because you’re so upset about the speech that he gave that I just think it does a disservice to say, you know. Once, again, let’s start talking impeachment. That's like the protesters outside the arena as opposed to a conversation about should we fact check the President and is he handling the Charlottesville thing properly. How should we handle that topic with dignity if we don't think he handled it with dignity or as Paul Ryan talked about.
“My point is that the media does exist to hold elected officials accountable and has to have credibility with the public when they do that and when we go – we lose our own credibility, I'm saying we because I'm on CNN. We lose our credibility when we go far as to immediately say, you know what? Let's have a ten-minute conversation with multiple people all chiming in that we just think the President is insane. I mean, you do realize how that’s being heard by millions of people,” Shields added with that devastating rhetorical question.
Despite the earlier segment and Wilson’s own words minutes earlier, Lemon offered this Pants-on-Fire claim:
I think — hang on. Hang on. I will let you get in. I think by saying that something is insanity is not necessarily say that the — what is happening right now is insanity, not saying specifically that the President is insane. I think people are questioning — are questioning his fitness for office and for me to say, for people to say oh, my gosh, this is insane doesn't mean the person is insane. It just means the situation we're in is insane or not the norm....if you cannot assess someone's behavior and figure out whether they're okay or fit for something, then who are we? What have we become where we have to have this fake objectivity and pretend that thing is not happening.
Lemon showed in the seconds after the Trump rally ended just how unglued he would be tonight, so it came up again when he mocked Shields’s arguments as a big, giant strawman:
When I hear someone yelling on the streets, Mike, for no reason, screaming, howling at the moon and sky, am I supposed to say I'm going to say, well, I’m going to lose my credibility because I don't assess that person as someone who has something wrong with them or who needs help. We can't sit here and pretend that that is not happening. That what happened on this stage tonight in Phoenix, Arizona, is normal, is rational, is worthy of the highest office in the land, is worthy of someone who has the nuclear codes for someone to sit there and have these — and present these fake enemies we're not the enemy of the state or of the people or the President of the United States.
“This man has a nuclear codes and can blast us to smithereens at any moment if he wants to. So says the former Director of National Intelligence who just appeared on CNN who said now he is worried and scared about this person,” a fearful Lemon concluded.
Shields responded [emphasis mine]:
Yeah, look, I just think there's a difference between what you just said. First of all, I'm not asking for fake objectivity. I'm asking for a little bit of sort of credibility how we're talking about these things. Secondly, whether or not he's worthy to hold office and whether or not he's fit and insane to hold office, worthy to hold office is a partisan thing that lots of Democrats never thought he was and never will accept he is. He's not fit for office takes us — veers us into a place where it allows people that want to criticize media, when you want to push back on them and say, you know, the President shouldn't criticize us and that's crazy for him to do that, for them – when we say, you know what? He's actually insane, you're doing the work of the President and the people that want to criticize the media. That’s my point. I think we can have a conversation about this.
The late-night craziness Shields bought back against were thanks to CNN advertisers Claritin, FractureMe.com, Midas, and Whole Food Markets.
Here’s the relevant transcript from August 23's CNN Tonight with Don Lemon:
CNN Tonight with Don Lemon
August 23, 2017
12:40 a.m. Eastern
MIKE SHIELDS: Don, you know, we have these conversations on your show about media coverage. I think a piece of advice I would give everybody is the President's spent a tremendous amount of time tonight criticizing the media. And it's right to push back on that, it’s right to hold him accountable, it’s right to fact check him but immediately after that when the conversation shifts into he's insane and he's unfit for office and he's lost his mind and we're doing psychoanalysis on television of the President, you're doing the work of — you’re doing his work for him. This is almost what he wants to see happen is that he criticizes the media and the media themselves are unhinged and start calling the President insane. I think that's a huge mistake. I think it's a mistake not to call the protesters left-wing protesters that are in Arizona right now fighting the police, I think that's a mistake, as well. I think, if you could do those things, not call the President insane and just fact check him and call the protesters out for who you are, you gain the credibility ground that you need to push back on the president when he gives a speech like this. You're almost doing his work for him when we start calling him insane. So, that’s, you know, the first comment I have to make about that.
LEMON: You thought his speech was sane? You thought it was a rational speech?
SHIELDS: I thought it sounded exactly like a speech he gave in the campaign and no one was calling him, let's have a whole panel discussion about how he insane is he during the campaign and so, you can disagree with what the President’s saying —
LEMON: Should we have been?
SHEILDS: — look, I think that it is correct to criticize the President's handling of how he's communicated to the American people about race and about the Charlottesville incident. That's a legitimate conversation. We should have that and we have been having that. I think that it's good he's talking about it. He should keep talking about. I understand the criticism tonight of how he talked about it, although I don think he was trying to point out there are parts of what he said that weren't covered. And we can argue whether or not that's appropriate for him to do or not, but that’s a good conversation and veering off into he's insane sort of ends our credibility to criticize him because people now think just we're the ones that are sort losing it over his speech and that’s probably what he and his supporters want us to do.
(....)
SHIELDS: Look, I mean, the other part of this, so where this is sort of leading is and I heard you guys saying this is that, you know, the Congress has to do thing about this. The American people elected the President, okay?. The media didn't elect him. Commentators didn't elect him. The Congress didn't elect him either and so before the Congress is going to do something like this, this is why we're jumping so ahead in this conversation because you’re so upset about the speech that he gave that I just think it does a disservice to say, you know. Once, again, let’s start talking impeachment. That's like the protesters outside the arena as opposed to a conversation about should we fact check the President and is he handling the Charlottesville thing properly. How should we handle that topic with dignity if we don't think he handled it with dignity or as Paul Ryan talked about.
LEMON: So Mike, are you saying there's never any nothing is out of bound with the President? You know, there was — Richard Nixon was driven from office. He resigned. So the president is always right, is always sane, is always accurate and can do no wrong? Is – that’s what it sounds —
SHIELDS: That's not what I'm saying at all, don and that's actually my point. My point is that the media does exist to hold elected officials accountable and has to have credibility with the public when they do that and when we go – we lose our own credibility, I'm saying we because I'm on CNN. We lose our credibility when we go far as to immediately say, you know what? Let's have a ten-minute conversation with multiple people all chiming in that we just think the President is insane.
LEMON: I think that —
SHIELDS: I mean, you do realize how that’s being heard by millions of people? They’re going, you know what? The media’s just blasting the President —
LEMON: I think — hang on. Hang on. I will let you get in. I think by saying that something is insanity is not necessarily say that the — what is happening right now is insanity, not saying specifically that the president is insane. I think people are questioning —
SHIELDS: People were saying he is insane.
LEMON: — are questioning his fitness for office and for me to say, for people to say oh, my gosh, this is insane doesn't mean the person is insane. It just means the situation we're in is insane or not the norm. But to question — the former Director of National Intelligence also his members of his own party are questioning his fitness for office. And we are talking about that, and if you cannot assess someone's behavior and figure out whether they're okay or fit for something, then who are we? What have we become where we have to have this fake objectivity and pretend that thing is not happening. When I hear someone yelling on the streets, Mike, for no reason, screaming, howling at the moon and sky, am I supposed to say I'm going to say, well, I’m going to lose my credibility because I don't assess that person as someone who has something wrong with them or who needs help. We can't sit here and pretend that that is not happening. That what happened on this stage tonight in Phoenix, Arizona, is normal, is rational, is worthy of the highest office in the land, is worthy of someone who has the nuclear codes for someone to sit there and have these — and present these fake enemies we're not the enemy of the state or of the people or the President of the United States. This man has a nuclear codes and can blast us to smithereens at any moment if he wants to. So says the former Director of National Intelligence who just appeared on CNN who said now he is worried and scared about this person.
SHIELDS: Yeah, look, I just think there's a difference between what you just said. First of all, I'm not asking for fake objectivity. I'm asking for a little bit of sort of credibility how we're talking about these things. Secondly, whether or not he's worthy to hold office and whether or not he's fit and insane to hold office, worthy to hold office is a partisan thing that lots of Democrats never thought he was and never will accept he is. He's not fit for office takes us — veers us into a place where it allows people that want to criticize media, when you want to push back on them and say, you know, the President shouldn't criticize us and that's crazy for him to do that, for them – when we say, you know what? He's actually insane, you're doing the work of the President and the people that want to criticize the media. That’s my point. I think we can have a conversation about this.
