Lacking any sense of irony, CNN White House correspondent and ethically-compromised hack John Harwood engaged in a tu quoque (so a common logical fallacy) during Tuesday’s Situation Room, decrying President Trump for “functioning at the level of a child” detached from reality and possessing “profoundly disturbing leadership” on the coronavirus pandemic.
So, how ironic that Harwood, in so many words, described not only CNN’s behavior in the Trump era, but their lack of sobriety as a player in our political discourse. Also, one could only hope that either China’s Xi Jinping and/or the Joe Biden campaign saw this tape.
Reacting to the latest White House Coronavirus briefing, host Wolf Blitzer admitted the briefing contained plenty of substance, but then blamed the President for diverting attention by answering questions from reporters about hydroxychloroquine.
Talk about shooting the messenger, but it’s a tried and true media tactic: ask someone a question about something unrelated to the previous topic and then attack them for distracting from the first one.
Pivoting to Harwood, Blitzer showed that, in the end, CNN wasn’t all that concerned about facts and calming Americans. Instead, Blitzer complained that Trump offered up “a pretty extraordinary statement” by expressing jealousy with Dr. Tony Fauci’s approval ratings.
Meanwhile, Harwood continued to live up to the person we read about in the WikiLeaks dumps and saw as a co-moderator of CNBC’s infamous Republican presidential primary debate.
Telling Wolf “let’s be honest,” Harwood asserted that “[t]he President, in the middle of a deadly pandemic, with four million cases, with over 150,000 Americans dead, is functioning at the level of a child and not even a child who is really connected to reality.”
To reiterate, Harwood claimed that not only was the President “a child,” he’s a child who’s not in full control of their mental faculties.
Harwood continued with his audition tape (click “expand”):
He retweeted all that nonsense from this kooky person who was — made all these claims about hydroxychloroquine. All the medical experts have debunked the assertions that hydroxychloroquine is some kind of a cure and even as the President is trying — has — has — has been goaded by his aides into trying to strike a more realistic assessment of the situation, he cannot resist repeating his promotion of this completely unproven medication, not to mention the absurd statements like much of the country is corona-free. We — cases are, indeed, coming down somewhat or the — the rise in cases has been tempered in some of the hottest spots.
But we still have more than 55,000 cases a day. 1,000 people dying a day and the President’s complaining that people don't like him. It's profoundly disturbing that this is the kind of leadership the country or lack of leadership that the country is getting from the White House in a crisis of this magnitude.
Without hesitation, Blitzer concurred that Trump wasn’t an adult:
Yeah, it was pretty stunning when you heard the President sounding a bit jealous of Dr. Fauci who spent 40, 50 years dealing with infectious diseases and he does have an extraordinarily high rating — approval rating unlike the President right now. His approval rating on coronavirus is not very good, according to all of the recent public opinion polls.
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To see the relevant CNN transcript from July 28, click “expand.”
CNN’s The Situation Room
July 28, 2020
5:52 p.m. EasternWOLF BLITZER: I mean, when he ad libs and he’s just answering questions, you get a very different tone from the President. Earlier in the briefing, he was making important steps about domestic production of pharmaceutical products, announcing a new agreement with Kodak to launch a new program, $765 million federal loan. All of that very important and at the end, he repeated what is significant in terms of various steps to deal with the coronavirus. But John Harwood, your our White House correspondent, then all of a sudden responds to the questioning, he gets very sensitive about the “approval rating” for Dr. Fauci. “Why don’t I get that? Why does nobody” — then he says “nobody likes me.” That's a pretty extraordinary statement from the President of the United States because, as I said, he seems to be bit jealous of the nation's top infectious disease expert.
JOHN HARWOOD: Wolf, let’s be honest. The President in the middle of a deadly pandemic, with four million cases, with over 150,000 Americans dead, is functioning at the level of a child and not even a child who is really connected to reality. He retweeted all that nonsense from this kooky person who was — made all these claims about hydroxychloroquine. All the medical experts have debunked the assertions that hydroxychloroquine is some kind of a cure and even as the President is trying — has — has — has been goaded by his aides into trying to strike a more realistic assessment of the situation, he cannot resist repeating his promotion of this completely unproven medication, not to mention the absurd statements like much of the country is corona-free. We — cases are, indeed, coming down somewhat or the — the rise in cases has been tempered in some of the hottest spots. But we still have more than 55,000 cases a day. 1,000 people dying a day and the President’s complaining that people don't like him. It's profoundly disturbing that this is the kind of leadership the country or lack of leadership that the country is getting from the White House in a crisis of this magnitude.
BLITZER: Yeah, it was pretty stunning when you heard the President sounding a bit jealous of Dr. Fauci who spent 40, 50 years dealing with infectious diseases and he does have an extraordinarily high rating — approval rating unlike the President right now. His approval rating on coronavirus is not very good, according to all of the recent public opinion polls.
