Well, that was something. Over the course of about 28 minutes of airtime (including commercials) following the President’s Fourth of July event A Salute to America, CNN’s The Situation Room put on one of the most disgraceful displays of liberal media bias, Trump hatred, and slights at America you’ll ever see.
Attacking the President like bitter preschoolers, a cast of CNN personalities bashed the Trump speech as a “rudimentary” “eighth grade history” report ripping off of Schoolhouse Rock and Wikipedia to create a work of “jingoism and militaristic virtue.”
Unfortunately, things were bad during the speech when, at the 7:06 p.m. Eastern mark, fill-in host Brianna Keilar interjected at the end of the President’s tribute to the Air Force for a commercial break and thus skipped portions of the Navy section. When she returned, the Trump-bashing began.
Keilar first gloated that “when you compare [the military] to say his approval ratings, which, I mean, there is a huge chasm between the two” and was followed up by former Obama administration official and retired Rear Admiral John Kirby.
Kirby blasted Trump’s harmless speech as “fairly eighth grade history” that “appropriat[ed]...military virtue for his own personal gain, so he’s wrapping himself around the flag and around these troops and these aircraft.”
CNN aired the rest of the speech, but afterward, the floodgates of stupid shattered into a million pieces. Kirby led by asserting that he’s “troubled about the militaristic tone of the whole thing” that was “fairly sepia toned, and saccharine in its depth and context” lacking anything “about where the country should be going, what we should be working on.”
The TDS sufferer then added that he could have “watch[ed] Schoolhouse Rock” instead of Trump because “it's just, again, not who we are as a country.”
With an assist from Keilar bashing it as “rudimentary,” CNN political analyst Ryan Lizza took cheapshots at Trump’s speechwriters as putrid copiers from Wikipedia (click “expand”):
I mean, I think it's important to point out what he didn't say, right? He, you know, he read the speech from the teleprompter which he rarely does and he didn't go off into a lot of traditional Trumpian bizarre frankly tangents, you know, didn't do as much sort of attacking his enemies, just sort of normal stream of conscious Trump rants. I mean, that's what he does at rallies and speeches. It didn't happen this time. It, you know, reminds me of a couple of other speeches where he read the whole thing and didn't — and didn’t do that. State of the Union, maybe the D-Day speech and when he does stick to a speech, you know, maybe just as a writer I'm a little bit more alert to this, it reminds you that his speechwriters are not the best in the business. Other presidential speech writing teams have been a whole better. George W. Bush had a great speech writing team if you read the speeches. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, these speeches are sort of — a little low. They’re very basic. Sometimes it seems he is reading Wikipedia page about historical events, you know, on this date this happened. A lot of jokes on Twitter and elsewhere seems like a school — Schoolhouse Rock version of history or, you know, seventh or 8th grade research reports, but, you know a little bit of credit for not — for not going off on a lot of sort of lunatic tangents which, frankly, has happened quite a bit when he talks.
White House reporter Kate Bennett jumped into pathetically bash the chants of U-S-A as “symbolic of a rally” and expressed disappointment that Trump celebrated how far we’ve come as a country.
After The Washington Post’s David Swerdlick fretted that Trump wasn’t on par with Beyonce at the Super Bowl or Lin-Manuel Miranda with the Obamas at the White House, he tag-teamed with Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr to lament that the President was celebrating the Fourth of July this way while there are homeless veterans, grieving Gold Star families, and vets battling PTSD.
Yes, really.
“I feel this way as a reporter covering the military about so much of it of what we see here is that service in the United States military over the decades, over the hundreds of years is not a reality TV show....You know, you got to make the military realistic to young people today, not a reality TV show and not a computer game,” Starr stated.
Now we’ve arrived at the portion of the program when April Ryan launched into a lengthy meltdown. Here’s that in its entirety (click “expand,” emphasis mine):
That's true. That’s true. Yeah, I — I tend to agree with everyone. But I'm taking like Barbara Starr take a bit of different take. I think at the moment this President had — he needed soaring moment needed a soaring speech as his disapproval numbers are higher than approval numbers as he’s going against Joe Biden. And yes he was focused, he wasn't distracted but what I will say as we went through that Schoolhouse Rock history lesson portion I took notes. If you didn't know better, you know, it sounds like everything was great, but when he talked about the — about the Gold Star families I thought about the Gold Star family, the Khan family. When he talked about the military who I couldn't help but think about late Senator John McCain, who was a POW. As he’s saluting the military, I also watched him and heard him talk about women's suffrage, you know, a hundred years ago how women weren't allowed to vote. But there are still calls for him to have free and fair elections, you know, especially after this last midterm where there were calls about and not just women but just but for minorities as well issues of voter suppression. He talked about Dr. King. He talked about the Greensboro — the kids February 1st in 1960 who sat in at that Woolworths counter and integrated that Woolsworth counter — the Woolsworth’s, actually across the country for sitting in because they were hungry. And he — when he said that, I thought about the exonerated five. You know, he’s talking about the 18-year-old kids at that time in 1960. I'm thinking about the kids who he took out a full page ad for — for them to have the death penalty and they were exonerated and he still feels they were guilty when they were exonerated through DNA. I also heard him invoke the name Harriet Tubman as Harriet Tubman's likeness on a $20 bill is in jeopardy in this administration. They’re trying to delay past 2028 when it should have been 2020. So, if you didn't know better — and the list goes on. The list goes on. I could go on, but if you didn't know better, this President is trying to recreate his history before he celebrated the military. He needed this moment. If you didn't know better, if you didn't fact check and go back to what he said or done about certain issues it would be a soaring speech. But for someone who covers him day in and day out and understands some of the issues — I'm still even checking on when he said he said the ISIS caliphate is 100 percent gone, we have to check that one as well. There are a lot of things in this speech that he — it may have been Schoolhouse Rock Trump version, but nonetheless we still have to fact check and it was his attempted at a soaring moment for history.
And to the praise of his colleagues, analyst Phil “proud s***holer” Mudd stated that he “thought we were celebrating the defense of ideals, the right to live free and fair” on the Fourth of July thanks to our Founders, but Trump has ruined it (click “expand”):
Well, let’s see. Let me be subtle here. At a professional level of 25 years in national security I hated it. At a personal level, I hated it more....I didn't realize we were fighting the chance to pay for guns, for weapons. I did national security. I thought this was — this was about ideals and now we made it about the military. That's not what the Founding Fathers gave us. They gave us the gift of ideals. At a personal level, excuse me but now we have the Super Bowl is invaded by politics. Players are kneeling. The Women's World Cup has been invaded by politics. A dispute about women going to the white house. We have a stupid dispute of politics this week about whether Nike puts a flag on a shoe. Can we actually have a day with hamburgers, hot dogs and a few beers without a politician. Please, one day and now we can’t because we got politicians saying let’s celebrate guns and aircrafts and forget about the Founding Fathers who talked about being cautious with a standing military.
After a final break, Kirby argued that, while he loves the military for what it’s done for his family, he was uncomfortable that the event was “wrapped around jingoism and militaristic virtue” and didn’t call for Americans to do things like serve in the Peace Corps. He and his fellow panelists also cited Twitter as a source of what the country thinks, so there was that kookiness too.
At the end, Lizza admitted their views were clouded by their “own biases” (click “expand”):
Look, Trump is an incredibly polarizing figure and all of us bring our knowledge of his history and our own biases about how we feel about him to any event like this and a speech you know, it has to be said there are millions of Americans who watched the speech and probably don't have any criticism, thought it was just a perfectly ordinary Fourth of July address. And that's the nature of our politics right now. You can't -- you're not going to insert Donald Trump into something like the 4th of July and not have a sort of huge diversity of opinions about it. You know, my test for when Trump does something kind of off the wall is what if Barack Obama had done this or said this, what — what Trump — Trump supporters — how would they have reacted. I think this is a useful thought exercise, what if Barack Obama had given this speech, you know? How would we have — have reacted?
No way, Sherlock.
To see the relevant transcript from CNN’s The Situation Room on July 4, click “expand.”
CNN’s The Situation Room
July 4, 2019
7:10 p.m. Eastern
BRIANNA KEILAR: We are back with our live coverage of President Trump's salute to America. The President is getting ready to introduce the U.S. Navy fly over. And before we see the planes, I want to bring in retired Admiral John Kirby to talk about what we have seen so far.
JOHN KIRBY: Yeah.
KEILAR: The military is very popular.
KIRBY: It is.
KEILAR: The President is — I mean, there’s associating oneself with the most popular institution in America especially when you compare it to say his approval ratings, which, I mean, there is a huge chasm between the two.
KIRBY: Right.
KEILAR: There is a divide about whether he should be doing this. You think he should not be. You have concerns.
KIRBY: I do. I think each time he gets around military troops or assets he tends to politicize them and I think they get drawn more and more into his sort of — his appropriation of military virtue for his own personal gain, so he’s wrapping himself around the flag and around these troops and these aircraft because he knows they’re very popular with America and because he knows he will get applause lines and I think he’s trying to appropriate that popularity for himself and I — again, I just — this is not about how we won our won our independence. The Fourth of July is about declaring independence and the Founders were very suspicious of having a standing army or standing navy to begin with. It should not be about the military and all this focus and all this fairly eighth grade history on — on the military bothers me.
(....)
7:33 p.m. Eastern
JOHN KIRBY: Look, it's very unusual to see something like this and I — I still go back to what I said before. I think I'm just troubled about the militaristic tone of the whole thing. First we were treated to essentially eighth grade history that was fairly sepia toned and saccharine in its depth and context. In fact, it was lacking a lot of depth and context and I heard nothing other than a pledge to put the American flag on Mars, I heard nothing in the speech about where the country should be going, what we should be working on. Some of the problems we need to fix and that's what we lean on a commander in chief and a President for is to drive us forward. We are a very young country. We have the attention span of poodles. We like to look ahead and we need a President and leader that will help us do that. I heard none of that in this. I could have gotten this off of watching Schoolhouse Rock and I frankly didn't need all the militaristic, you know, displays of might. I think it's just, again, not who we are as a country.
BRIANNA KEILAR: What did you think Ryan Lizza?
RYAN LIZZA: I mean, I think it's important to point out what he didn't say, right? He, you know, he read the speech from the teleprompter which he rarely does and he didn't go off into a lot of traditional Trumpian bizarre frankly tangents, you know, didn't do as much sort of attacking his enemies, just sort of normal stream of conscious Trump rants. I mean, that's what he does at rallies and speeches. It didn't happen this time. It, you know, reminds me of a couple of other speeches where he read the whole thing and didn't — and didn’t do that. State of the Union, maybe the D-Day speech and when he does stick to a speech, you know, maybe just as a writer I'm a little bit more alert to this, it reminds you that his speechwriters are not the best in the business. Other presidential speech writing teams have been a whole better. George W. Bush had a great speech writing team if you read the speeches. Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, these speeches are sort of — a little low.
KEILAR: Rudimentary.
LIZZA: They’re very basic. Sometimes it seems he is reading Wikipedia page about historical events, you know, on this date this happened. A lot of jokes on Twitter and elsewhere seems like a school — Schoolhouse Rock version of history or, you know, seventh or 8th grade research reports, but, you know a little bit of credit for not — for not going off on a lot of sort of lunatic tangents which, frankly, has happened quite a bit when he talks.
KEILAR: Any. He didn't go off on any tangents.
KAITLAN BENNETT: There was a U-S-A, U-S-A chant.
KEILAR: Yes.
BENNETT: You know, that was symbolic of a rally, but other than that— and I think the nostalgia of the speech you were saying had to do with the history lesson we all sat through and the very rudimentary as you said way. That made it feel, you know, like we were looking back and not forward. And that — that felt a little — a little off there.
DAVID SWERDLICK: Yeah, I mean, it wasn't Beyonce singing the National Anthem at the ‘04 Super Bowl. It wasn’t Lin-Manuel Miranda at the White House in 2009 rapping Alexander Hamilton, but it was fine, Bri. It was a history lesson. It was, as everyone else said, it was like a Wikipedia entry. It almost felt at times like the President was sort of like, “wow look at all the things that America has done.” His whole pitch going back three years has been Make America Great Again. If you listen to that speech, turns out America was great the whole time. We did a lot of good things. We struggled through a lot of things as a country, but again, he stuck to script. Content-wise fine. I agree with Admiral Kirby I'm still not quite sure why he felt this holiday was the venue for it. But, moving on.
KEILAR: Barbara Starr, you cover the Defense Department day in and day out. What was your perspective what you saw here?
BARBARA STARR: Well I think I'm going to be a little bit of a divergent voice from everybody there tonight. Look, I mean, this was an event supposed to be at minimum feel good for the country on a holiday, but what strikes me the most — and I feel this way as a reporter covering the military about so much of it of what we see here is that service in the United States military over the decades, over the hundreds of years is not a reality TV show. You know, right now, today as we stand here, there are homeless veterans on the street. There are veterans suffering from post-traumatic stress all the way dating back to their service in Vietnam. Suicide is at an all-time rate. Military families are struggling on salaries that could be definitely high are. Veterans are struggling for their benefits. Gold Star families, he — good for the president that he mentioned them, but if you are a Gold Star family, if you have lost a spouse or child or relative in combat, you are a Gold Star family for the rest of your life and that stays with you forever. You know, stuff that people probably don't want to get sad about on a holiday, but from the president of the United States, any president we see this all the time. They use the military as a political back drop. President Obama did it. Both President Bush’s did it. It is a rally call to the country for loyalty to the military, loyalty to national goals and that's all fine, but I think many people in this country have really moved beyond just that and the reason it's so important and I think Admiral Kirby knows this better than anybody, today recruiting into the military of young Americans is very tough. They don't necessarily — in the great numbers that are needed have the affinity necessarily, not all of them — some of them do for public service. Many young people cannot qualify for military service because of their health. You know, you got to make the military realistic to young people today, not a reality TV show and not a computer game.
SWERDLICK: Can I just add one thing.
KEILAR: Yeah.
SWERDLICK: I — you know, Barbara said that so well. I think she is right the military deserves a moment of recognition and celebration. The only thing I would add though is that if there are these military families that are out here that have needs that need the recognition that have lost loved ones, why wouldn't the money for the event be spent on tricare or base housing or other things military families need and not a moment to center a national holiday around the President? That would be my only criticism.
KEILAR: April Ryan?
APRIL RYAN: That's true. That’s true. Yeah, I — I tend to agree with everyone. But I'm taking like Barbara Starr take a bit of different take. I think at the moment this President had — he needed soaring moment needed a soaring speech as his disapproval numbers are higher than approval numbers as he’s going against Joe Biden. And yes he was focused, he wasn't distracted but what I will say as we went through that Schoolhouse Rock history lesson portion I took notes. If you didn't know better, you know, it sounds like everything was great, but when he talked about the — about the Gold Star families I thought about the Gold Star family, the Khan family. When he talked about the military who I couldn't help but think about late Senator John McCain, who was a POW. As he’s saluting the military, I also watched him and heard him talk about women's suffrage, you know, a hundred years ago how women weren't allowed to vote. But there are still calls for him to have free and fair elections, you know, especially after this last midterm where there were calls about and not just women but just but for minorities as well issues of voter suppression. He talked about Dr. King. He talked about the Greensboro — the kids February 1st in 1960 who sat in at that Woolworths counter and integrated that Woolsworth counter — the Woolsworth’s, actually across the country for sitting in because they were hungry. And he — when he said that, I thought about the exonerated five. You know, he’s talking about the 18-year-old kids at that time in 1960. I'm thinking about the kids who he took out a full page ad for — for them to have the death penalty and they were exonerated and he still feels they were guilty when they were exonerated through DNA. I also heard him invoke the name Harriet Tubman as Harriet Tubman's likeness on a $20 bill is in jeopardy in this administration. They’re trying to delay past 2028 when it should have been 2020. So, if you didn't know better — and the list goes on. The list goes on. I could go on, but if you didn't know better, this President is trying to recreate his history before he celebrated the military. He needed this moment. If you didn't know better, if you didn't fact check and go back to what he said or done about certain issues it would be a soaring speech. But for someone who covers him day in and day out and understands some of the issues -- I'm still even checking on when he said he said the ISIS caliphate is 100 percent gone, we have to check that one as well. There are a lot of things in this speech that he — it may have been Schoolhouse Rock Trump version, but nonetheless we still have to fact check and it was his attempted at a soaring moment for history.
KEILAR: I do want to get Phil Mudd's perspective on what we just saw, Phil.
PHIL MUDD: Well, let’s see. Let me be subtle here at a professional level of 25 years in national security I hated it. At a personal level, I hated it more. Let me tell you something when we’re in the midst of July 4th after — after 9/11 when I was at the CIA, I thought we were celebrating the defense of ideals, the right to live free and fair. The right to live according to the documents that our Founding Fathers established, the right to — of every person every citizen in the country to pretend like they can be President, the right to have economic opportunity. I didn't realize we were fighting the chance to pay for guns, for weapons. I did national security. I thought this was — this was about ideals and now we made it about the military. That's not what the Founding Fathers gave us. They gave us the gift of ideals. At a personal level, excuse me but now we have the Super Bowl is invaded by politics. Players are kneeling. The Women's World Cup has been invaded by politics. A dispute about women going to the White House. We have a stupid dispute of politics this week about whether Nike puts a flag on a shoe. Can we actually have a day with hamburgers, hot dogs and a few beers without a politician. Please, one day and now we can’t because we got politicians saying let’s celebrate guns and aircrafts and forget about the Founding Fathers who talked about being cautious with a standing military.
KEILAR: I just always wish that Phil Mudd would tell us what he really thinks.
SWERDICLIK: What he really thinks.
BENNETT: What he really feels.
(....)
7:49 p.m. Eastern
KIRBY: I think a speech that was less focused on the past and more on the future and sort of bringing us together because we are a divided nation. I — that would have been helpful. I think a shorter speech would have been helpful and I certainly don't think it should have been wrapped around jingoism and militaristic virtue because, again, that, yes I'm proud of a being a veteran. My son is in the Navy. I'm proud of that, that history that we have in the service, but that's not the essence of being an American. It's part of it and not every American serves nor should every have to serve in the military. That's another thing making this a great country. I think wrapping himself around bigger ideas of what it is to be an person, to be something part of larger than yourself and to serve in other ways other than the uniform and calling — calling on Americans to find that sense of themselves and going forward and try to heal some of these divides, whether it's joining the Peace Corps or volunteering in your local community. Those are real stories. That's what he should have called out. You know, he almost got there, Bri, when he called out a couple of local volunteers and I thought, “okay, that I can get around and that would be good to build a speech about and talk about on a day like today.”
KEILAR: To talk about, like, the American spirit more?
KIRBY: To talk about the average, everyday Americans who is out there, even today in California with this earthquake, checking on their neighbors, making sure people are okay. That's what makes us who we are. This is not who we are. It's not about fly-overs and not about tanks. We're about taking care of one another and I still think that if — certainly you don't get this impression if you look at Twitter, but I still think most Americans are like that and I think most Americans would like to get beyond the bitterness that divides us right now. He could have tapped into that spirit, which I know is out there, that good will and he didn't do it. He lost that opportunity.
KEILAR: Kate, were you surprised that he stayed on message? The White House had promised he's going to have a message of unity and to talk about the American story. I did think that could have been filled in a little more, talking about the American story.
BENNETT: Yeah.
KEILAR: But he — even though this was — he's in the middle of it so it is about him. But he didn't talk about himself.
BENNETT: He didn't. I mean, he really — he stayed on the script, which is something we hardly ever see him do.
(....)
7:52 p.m. Eastern
LIZZA: Look, Trump is an incredibly polarizing figure and all of us bring our knowledge of his history and our own biases about how we feel about him to any event like this and a speech you know, it has to be said there are millions of Americans who watched the speech and probably don't have any criticism, thought it was just a perfectly ordinary Fourth of July address. And that's the nature of our politics right now. You can't -- you're not going to insert Donald Trump into something like the 4th of July and not have a sort of huge diversity of opinions about it. You know, my test for when trump does something kind of off the wall is what if Barack Obama had done this or said this, what — what Trump — Trump supporters — how would they have reacted. I think this is a useful thought exercise, what if Barack Obama had given this speech, you know? How would we have — have reacted?
