President Donald Trump made a recent trip to Japan over the Memorial Day weekend to discuss trade with Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. While he was there, he went to Twitter and made some controversial remarks regarding former Vice President Joe Biden.
On the Tuesday edition of CNN's New Day, both hosts and guests were livid at Trump’s remarks. Host Alisyn Camerota said that this is something that they “gloss over...the President being critical of some things,” but she needed to call a “timeout” on this one. CNN contributor and New York Times op-ed columnist Frank Bruni agreed with Camerota’s sentiment and told the panel and the audience that they needed to “deplore” this.
Bruni escalated the discussion when he said that Trump and former Cambodian dictator Pol Pot, a man responsible for genocide, would have been “fast friends”:
I agree with you that we need to say timeout and deplore this, but I don't think it's stunning. This is par for the course for Trump. I mean, this is someone who is happy to side with any kind of person in the world, Putin, Kim Jong-un, if it serves his purposes and helps him kind of press a case against someone else. It's a shame Donald Trump wasn't in public office when Pol Pot was around, they could have been fast friends and could have used him in these ways. But no, this is an extension. He was saying during the campaign Putin likes me better than Hillary Clinton that means I'm better. Right? Now he's saying Kim Jong-Un likes me better than Joe Biden, I'm better. It's absurd, it's morally reprehensible, but it's par for the course.
He didn’t share the same remarks for the likes of Bernie Sanders and Joseph Stalin or Vladimir Lenin, despite Sanders spending his honeymoon carousing in the Soviet Union.
Instead of remaining objective, both the Camerota and Bruni felt obligated to tell their audience how they felt about the situation. This is just yet another example of the media attempting to portray Trump in a poor light rather than just state the facts as they are.
Later in the show, host John Berman referenced an article written by CNN chief legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin where he called Trump “unpatriotic.” Toobin went on to say this:
And there is a theme to it. It's all the authoritarians that he likes, whether it's in Hungary, or Russia, or North Korea. He identifies with the authoritarian leaders abroad, not with the democratically elected leaders, like Angela Merkel in Germany whom he doesn't like. This is how he is defining American foreign policy now. I don't know how closely people pay attention to this, he's obviously fixated on making some sort of deal with North Korea. Hasn't gone well so far, but, you know, I agree with Frank, like so much about this administration, it's shocking, but not surprising.
Toobin and Bruni happily suggested the dangerous notion to viewers that Trump was buddies with scores of dictators and tyrants.
Here is the complete transcript:
CNN's New Day
05/28/19
8:05 a.m. Eastern
ALISYN CAMEROTA: So, President Trump is on his way back to Washington this morning after his trip to Japan where he refused to condemn North Korea’s missile testing and repeated Kim Jong-Un's attacks on former Vice President Joe Biden. Many of the 2020 Democratic candidates pounced on that one.
[VIDEO OF DEMOCRATS CRITICIZING TRUMP BEGINS]
PETE BUTTIGIEG: Kim Jong-Un is a murderous dictator and Vice President Biden served this
country honorably.
BERNIE SANDERS: We don't need to be praising Kim Jong-Un or other authoritarian leaders all over the world who trump is making good friends with.
ELIZABETH WARREN: He cares about Donald Trump first, last, and in between and not protecting the interests of the United States of America.
[VIDEO ENDS]
CAMEROTA: Okay. Joining us to talk about this and so much more we have Frank Bruni, a
CNN contributor and "New York Times" op-ed columnist, Jeffrey Toobin, CNN's chief legal analyst, and a former federal prosecutor, and a staff writer for "The New Yorker" -- you have too many titles.
JEFFREY TOOBIN: I have too many titles.
CAMEROTA: Okay, let’s work on that. And Bianna Golodryga, CNN contributor. Great to have all of you here in studio. Frank, remember when the Dixie Chicks were ruined for going overseas and criticizing President Bush? And now here is where we are all of these years later where our U.S. President goes on to foreign soil and criticizes a former U.S. Vice President and sides with a murderous dictator to criticize that Vice President. It is just a stunning moment. I mean there are some things we can gloss over in terms of, you know, the President being critical of things. There are some things that we just need to say, timeout, let's just see where we are in this moment.
FRAN BRUNI: I agree with you that we need to say timeout and deplore this, but I don't think it's stunning. This is par for the course for Trump. I mean, this is someone who is happy to side with any kind of person in the world, Putin, Kim Jong-un, if it serves his purposes and helps him kind of press a case against someone else. It's a shame Donald Trump wasn't in public office when Pol Pot was around, they could have been fast friends and could have used him in these ways. But no, this is an extension. He was saying during the campaign Putin likes me better than Hillary Clinton that means I'm better. Right? Now he's saying Kim Jong-Un likes me better than Joe Biden, I'm better. It's absurd, it's morally reprehensible, but it's par for the course.
JOHN BERMAN: And, Jeffrey, you printed about this. This is part of the norm busting and I'm not diminishing it by calling it norm busting because I think it's very serious that we've seen before. As you point out there is a word that those in the past would have used for this which is unpatriotic, which is something you don't normally say of a U.S. President.
JEFF TOOBIN: And there is a theme to it. It's all the authoritarians that he likes, whether it's in Hungary, or Russia, or North Korea. He identifies with the authoritarian leaders abroad, not with the democratically elected leaders, like Angela Merkel in Germany whom he doesn't like. This is how he is defining American foreign policy now. I don't know how closely people pay attention to this, he's obviously fixated on making some sort of deal with North Korea. Hasn't gone well so far, but, you know, I agree with Frank, like so much about this administration, it's shocking, but not surprising.
BIANNA GOLODRYGA: How many Republicans have we heard speak out and condemned this?
CAMEROTA: A couple.
BERMAN: A couple, but not waves. It's not like Lindsey Graham is marching, you know, to the White House right now with pickets saying don't do this. But Joni Ernst and Adam Kinzinger.
CAMEROTA: I think so, at last count.
GOLODRYGA: And putting despots aside, this does put our allies in a box, too, as we continue going towards the 2020 election because if they speak outwardly -- you know, typically our allies overseas say we don't speak out or get involved in U.S. elections, but this could put extra pressure on them to feel like they have to side with one candidate or the other as we approach 2020 and obviously they are very important international policies they have to work through throughout this time.
