At CNN’s NewsNight with Abby Phillip, more colloquially known as the Thunderdome, we are often reminded that if it weren’t for double standards there would be none at all. So it is, now, with comparisons to terrorists made at the hallowed Table.
Consider this exchange, broadly over former President Barack Obama’s recent comments on the Marc Maron podcast decrying authoritarian creep (lol, someone get him a mirror), which end with Meidas Bro Adam Mockler comparing the election of President Trump to the election of Hamas in Gaza (click "expand" to view transcript):
Full exchange with more context: Abby clearly lost control of the segment. pic.twitter.com/H2i4ubGALO
— Jorge Bonilla (@BonillaJL) October 14, 2025
JOSH ROGIN: Are we just going to have a system where Trump tells Harvard or Columbia or the law firm of Johnson and Johnson --
ABBY PHILLIP: Right.
ROGIN: -- or the Human Rights Watch, that now you agree with everything I say or you lose all your funding, and I ruin your organization.
PHILLIP: Is that the new normal?
CAROLINE DOWNEY: But those are -- but those are taxpayer --
ROGIN: I say that's not good. I say that's a bad thing.
PHILLIP: Is that the new normal? I think that’s the new normal. Yeah.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: I mean- yeah, we got to go.
(CROSSTALK)
SCOTT JENNINGS: Didn't we have an election last year?
ROGIN: That doesn't justify --
JENNINGS: Are we going to have one next year?
CORNEL WEST: That doesn't rationalize--
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: And we're going to have one the next year?
(CROSSTALK)
JENNINGS: I think the democracy is functioning. We're having a free and fair election.
DOWNEY: Oh, so a lot of these institutions are taxpayer-funded.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right.
(CROSSTALK)
WEST: There you go. You're rationalizing it again. Hitler could have had the majority. So what -- so what is wrong?
(CROSSTALK)
ROGIN: …And..and people voted for low-priced eggs…
PHILLIP: All right, guys.
ROGIN: …not for authoritarianism. There's a difference, you know?
MOCKLER: Hamas was elected democratically.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. Okay. We're not going to make that comparison at the table.
JENNINGS: I just want to note that your Democratic panelist compared Donald Trump’s election to Hamas’s election. Just for the record.
(CROSSTALK)
PHILLIP: All right. We are not going to do that at the table tonight.
Mind you, the Hamas comparison happened immediately after Cornel West compared Trump’s majority win to Hitler’s. It appears to be the case that CNN continues to be tolerant of language among their guests that incites and inflames violence against conservatives, even as we see a spike in political violence.
It’s clear Phillip lost control of the segment, allowing this nonsense to go on for a minute after she called a wrap. She could have shut this foolishness down when West farted out the Hitler comparison, but let it ride and so it was inevitable that Mockler would deal the Hamas card from the bottom of the deck.
What’s noteworthy about this is that, despite Phillip noting the inappropriateness of such a comparison, Mockler was right back at the table for the next segment- business as usual. It wasn’t that long ago that a similar terror-comparison joke was made, with a significantly different outcome. As our own Curtis Houck noted at the time:
On Monday, CNN NewsNight with far-left pundit Abby Phillip (who pretends to be a journalist) descended into chaos when our friend and conservative panelist Ryan Girdusky quipped to former Al Jazerra and MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan that “I hope your beeper doesn’t go off,” in reference to the exploding beepers across Lebanon targeting members of Hezbollah.
Following an explosion of hurt feelings and pearl-clutching by Phillip, Hasan, and far-left commentator Ashley Allison, Phillip threw to a commercial break and, after returning, announced Girdusky was kicked off the panel for having “crossed” “a line” that was “not acceptable to me” in terms of fostering “civility.” CNN subsequently announced Girdusky was banned from the network.
Girdusky was run out of the studio and blackballed from the network for making the same statement as did West and Mockler in reference to Trump’s election to the presidency. Some may argue that Trump’s not being in the studio, as was Hasan at the time, is a mitigating factor. That’s a bunch of nonsense. If there is a standard here, it should have been applied equally. Since there isn’t, this means Mockler and West can continue to dehumanize political opposition. Unlike Girdusky’s goofy beeper joke, a situational one-off, these words can potentially inspire more of the violence we’ve seen in recent days. If it weren’t for double standards, there would be none at all.
