A leftist journalist, a former employee, a grieving widow, and a farmer. These are people who CNN brought on throughout the morning on Wednesday to trash the President. Not once during the four hour time span did CNN bring on one person who was critiquing Democratic nominee Joe Biden.
But four times in as many hours, New Day and CNN Newsroom went out of their way to find guests to plead for Americans to vote Trump out of office. Senior political analyst John Avlon started off the line-up by hailing such anti-Trump advocates: “the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing.”
Providing his regularly scheduled hit on Donald Trump during New Day, Avlon brought up a favorite topic of CNN: former administrative officials attacking the President. Avlon declared: “You go through all of American history, you can't find this many former administration officials warning against the reelection of the President they serve.” We’ll ignore the Thomas Jefferson and Aaron Burr example.
This was the first of several examples where CNN hosted a segment with no other reason than to attack the President. There was not even an attempt to hide the partisan Democratic Party agenda as they abandoned their journalistic integrity once again.
Former Trump employee and author of a book attacking the President, Barbara Res, was brought on the show next. Co-host Alisyn Camerota happily asked: “Let's just start with the racist behavior that you say you witnessed.” No fact checking, just the attacks. It should be noted that Res has publicly stated on Twitter that she has been actively speaking out against the President since at least 2015.
Host John Berman later brought on Alice Roberts, a grieving widow whose husband died to COVID-19 earlier this year. Roberts recently wrote an op-ed in a local paper asking people not to vote for the President. Berman noted: “You say this year the one plea you made was pleading for his life and now you're pleading for people to vote against President Trump.”
Finally, Christopher Gibbs, a board member of Rural America 2020, a nonprofit which speaks out against the President, was brought on by Newsroom host Poppy Harlow in the 10:00 a.m. ET hour to criticize the administration’s policies. Harlow brought up one of his attacks: “He posted these billboards in Iowa and Georgia … He said he's left of Republican Party and will vote for Joe Biden.”
With the exception of Roberts, none of these acts or statements were recent. This was not about reporting the news but about advancing the Democratic Party by weakening the President. Avlon, Gibbs, and Res all notably have a history of attacking the President.
With all due respect to these people, Mrs. Roberts especially, this was a blatant partisan attack from CNN.
This CNN bias was sponsored by USAA and Car Shield. Click on the links to let them know what you think.
A transcript of the October 13th Coverage is included below:
New Day
10/21/20
7:54 AM ETJOHN BERMAN: So this morning President Trump is uniting people at least in one front in ways that have never been done before. John Avlon with a reality check.
JOHN AVLON: We view American politics through a prism of division, we see a President Trump rage as he tries to inflame his base, we see Congress bitterly divided along hyper partisan lines, we see states where political opponents feel like personal enemies. So it can be hard to see a surprising sign of bipartisanship in this election, perhaps unprecedented in American history, I'm talking about Republican support for Joe Biden. Because there are at least 450 prominent Republicans, leaders of their party over decades who are supporting the Biden-Harris ticket. You saw a handful speak of the Democratic convention but in the last few weeks we have seen two former chairman of the Republican party Mark Grasco and Michael Steele endorse Joe Biden, five former Senators and 24 former Republican members of Congress. Former Republican Governors, CIA directors, cabinet secretaries, a U.N. Ambassador, military leaders and Cindy McCain. But that's not all, there are 129 national security officials from Republican administrations, hundreds of George W. Bush administration alumni and 46 members of Mitt Romney's campaign. In addition the Lincoln project, long time GOP operatives who made some of the most viral ads of the cycle. This isn't normal, but then these are not normal times. It's common to have a handful of folks cross party lines, we saw it Georgia Senator Zelle Miller, Ed Koch back Bush 43 in his election. And so called Obamacons in 2008. But here is what's never happened, so many Trump administration veterans endorsing his rival for President. And that's not even counting senior administration officials to have directly or indirectly warned Americans about the dangers of Donald Trump, people like John Bolton, Rex Tillerson, Jim Mattis and John Kelly. These are folks who worked closely with President Trump and their stories line up.
[…]
AVLON: You go through all of American history, you can't find this many former administration officials warning against the reelection of the President they serve. FDR had a few defections when he ran for a third term, Harry Truman splintered Democrats into Dixie Democrat Progressive parties and always a few critics writing books at the end of administrations but nothing like this. The question for all of the above is why. Some talk about Biden's decency, experience, commitment to finding common ground, but Sean O'Keefe a former Navy secretary told me, offering up a quote often attributed to Edmund Burke, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. And that's your reality check.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Wow. John, wow. Having you put all of this together is one place is so helpful because, you know, we often see these different feelings pop up on social media or whatever, but all at one, that is powerful.
(....)
8:28 AM ET
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Former longtime executive in Donald Trump's real estate company says she witnessed racist, sexist and all around boorish behavior from Donald Trump for years. Barbara Res writes in her new book, quote, if you didn't know the actual fact he could slip something past you. Joining us now is Barbara Res, her new book is about her 18 years working for Trump, it's called "Tower of Lies" and it is on book shelves now. Barbara, great to see you.
BARBARA RES [Author]: Good morning. It's nice to see you again.
CAMEROTA: So let's talk about everything that you witnessed. I mean, you have this front-row seat for 18 years. Let's just start with the racist behavior that you say you witnessed. You write in your book that he didn't want any black workers on his construction sites and here is what you write, ‘get him off there right now, Donald said, and don't ever let that happen again. I don't want people to think that Trump Tower is being built by black people.’ You go on to say he also didn't want any black job applicant, a young man, sitting in the lobby of Trump Tower. Why? Why didn't he want any blacks visible?
RES: Okay. Well, it's the first item where there was a black man grinding the concrete on the second floor of the building when it was wide open and you could see -- you could see it from the street and that's -- and he saw it from his office or the building lobby and that's what upset him and he called me and another person and he said I don't want that to happen again. We don't want people thinking that this is being built by black people. Later I was interviewing architectural students for a plant clerk job and I had a young man waiting for me in the lobby, I was across the building and after I interviewed him I saw Donald, he grabbed someone, told me he needs to see you. He said don't ever let that happen again, I don't want black kids sitting in my lobby where millionaires are coming in to buy apartments. Don't let that happen. That really took me aback, I have to be honest with you. I think to this day and I'm not sure, I didn't choose this man because I had a better candidate that I liked that was more interesting in following up on construction, but would I have hired him, you know, I probably would have.
CAMEROTA: So when Donald Trump at the time said things like that, I mean, I know it was at '80s, did anybody ever say to him, call him on that and say, how dare you speak like that?
RES: Well, I did. I did. I said you're being ridiculous. You know, see, you had to pick your spots with Donald and I tried to, you know, be honest but it but not enrage him because what was the point of that? I wasn't happy about it to be honest with you, but it's also it's a long time ago, it was a very different time and people say, well, why did you still work for him? There weren't a lot of choices at the time, especially for a girl engineer. So I figured being there I could do more than letting him hire another racist like himself to do my job.
CAMEROTA: You also say he cannot stand the working class people who make up his base. You write his world is personal drivers, exclusive clubs, private planes and parties, but without the Maga hat wearing white male he has no political career. So he created this charade, friend to the common man.
RES: Absolutely.
CAMEROTA: Give me a break. Trump can't stand the common man. How do you know that?
RES: Well, there is a story in my book which is very telling. After a project structure is completed, the concrete or steel you have a big party celebrating that and thanking the men for the work and it's always men. We were planning a party and I went to see Donald with the project manager from the contractor and we talked about Donald was all excited about IT, he said this is great, I'm going to have this, I'm going to do this, I'm going to have this politician. Blah, blah, blah. We were talking about the logistics and how there were so many men working on the job it's going to be not easy to put together. He said what? What men? You are not going to have the workers here. And we said, Donald, it's for the workers. Okay. How about just the foremen. I'm going to have champagne here. This is not for workers, not for the construction workers. That to me was indicative of the fact that here were these, I don't know, a couple hundred, maybe more people that are working very hard for him to build him a building and he had absolutely no feeling for them. He totally disregarded them, he had no respect for them.
CAMEROTA: So, Barbara, you worked for him for 18 years. So the Donald Trump that you see today on your TV screen the same as the man that you worked for? Is there something that is surprising you now today?
RES: That's sort of the essence of my book, I go back and talk about the seeds of what we see today being there when I was working for him way back when and because I had this very unusual relationship with him and so much access there really is no one that can speak to the Donald of that time probably better than I. Yes, he has changed, but, again, like I said, you could always see it coming. There were some things about him that did surprise me and maybe because he's sort of protected me from this side of him, but like that remark that Billy Bush remark way back when in 2016 about women, you know, that shocked me. I didn't think that, you know, he would go on TV and admit to assaulting women. There are things that do surprise me but things that don't surprise me, you know, they are all in the pattern, this he followed the patterns that he set.
CAMEROTA: Quickly, what about all of the revelations about his taxes, that he hasn't paid taxes for many years, that he recently paid $750 taxes while he was in office. You say that he thinks that laws and things like that are for stupid people. Meaning what?
RES: Yes, I absolutely agree with that. You know, he thinks that every law can be skirted one way or another and he has been doing that and he's sort of gotten away with it. The taxes didn't surprise me at all. I would have expected just that. What surprised me was a year ago, over a year ago the "Times" did an article about how his family set up this scam corporation to do all the repairs and stuff at the trump buildings and they were able to take all this money out of the company and not pay, you know, estate taxes on it and stuff like that. I was shocked to see that there were people, Mary Ann and Elizabeth, his two sisters that I knew pretty well, I was so disappointed in seeing that, that they were involved in something like that.
CAMEROTA: I just want to read from the trump side, his Communications Director for the Trump campaign says about your book this is, quote, this is transparently a disgruntled former employee packaging a bunch of lies in a book to make money. We only have a few seconds, Barbara, your response.
RES: My response, we left on very good terms, I got a couple letters of recommendations, wonderful letters of recommendation from Donald. I didn't know what this was going to be like and I feel that, you know, everyone here has to do what they can to stop him from getting reelected and what I can do is write a book and that's what I did.
CAMEROTA: The book again is called "Tower of lies" it is out now, Barbara res, thank you very much for being on "New day."
(....)
8:40 AM ET
JOHN BERMAN: This morning the wife of a New Jersey police officer who died of coronavirus in may is speaking out. Police officer Charles Roberts known as Rob by friends and family served on the force for 20 years. He passed away at the age of 45, leaving behind his wife Alice and three children, Shay, Natalie and Gavin. Alice published an op-ed in the New Jersey Star Ledger titled "My Husband Died Of Covid-19 and I Have Just One Plea To Make Of You." Alice Roberts joins us now. Alice ... .
[…]
BERMAN: You wrote this piece in some ways as a message to voters and also as a message to President trump and you say in your mind the only thing he understands is winners and losers. So tell us, if you can, what you personally have lost.
ALICE ROBERTS [Guest]: I mean, I think that's hard to put into words or even conceptualize it. I still think I'm learning every day it hits me differently as to what I've lost. I don't think that's really measurable. I don't think it's just what I've lost, either, I think it's what this world has lost. …
BERMAN: And obviously your children have lost a father and that loss is immeasurable, but it's like so many others in this country now their lives have been upended. How?
ROBETS: Right, I think part of my article is I don't feel that trump has lost anything. He says how sick we are of the virus, yeah, we are all really sick of the virus, I can't say anyone is more sick of it than people who have lost loved ones. So, you know, we've lost an incredible amount and I think we just stand to lose so much more in the next four years if he is reelected. I don't think most people can say their lives have been made better during these past four years, especially not during this past year. I certainly can say my life has turned at least 90 degrees, but it's hard to tell how much more -- I hate to question that because that's a scary question, how much more can we really take?
BERMAN: You tell your story when your husband got sick and ended up in the hospital, you were only able to see him twice. Just twice once he was in the hospital which I know has got to be incredibly painful and you say you've only made a few pleas in your life. Up until this point what have some of those pleas been?
ROBERTS: I mean, I think for the most part we had a really great life together, we were both in jobs that we enjoyed and they were socially rewarding. We got a lot of positive feedback living and working in the town. You know, I don't hope for a lot in life, you know, we prayed and hoped he would get better and that didn't happen, but, do you know what, now I pray and hope that his death can have some meaning and greater purpose. We had hoped to donate his organs, he had signed up for the organ registry and we weren't able to because of the virus. So now I just hope that his death can bring about some positive change in this country and I want people to know we are a real family and we are really grieving and this isn't fake news and it's not exaggerated. So I – pled with people to vote and to vote their conscious.
BERMAN: You say this year the one plea you made was pleading for his life and now you're pleading for people to vote against President Trump. What was it like for you to watch the President's battle with coronavirus when he got sick?
ROBERTS: That's hard to say. I mean, I know a lot of people feel that he speaks for them and that he's just one of them, but he's not one of us. You know, he got top notch medical care, not everyone who gets sick is going to get that. He was able to get tested multiple times in a week. My husband's tests were mixed up and they took weeks to return. I'm sorry, can you repeat the question?
BERMAN: I was just going to ask you how it felt to watch the President go through his battle with coronavirus.
ROBERTS: Yeah, so then he miraculously recovered and I thought then at that point, wow, he could really show a human side. Well, I didn't really think that. I would be silly to think that. But then when he went up those steps and unveiled his mask and then since then has had, you know, super spreader rallies, it's really like he's -- he's really spitting on all these loved ones' graves. I had a fellow high school classmate whose father also died of covid and she said -- she spoke for CNN and wrote some articles saying Trump is spitting on my father's grave and that's exactly how I feel. He had a choice to be more human and to show empathy, but I don't think he's possible -- he's not possible -- it's not possible for him to show empathy because I don't think he can feel that emotion. I think he thinks of one person and that's himself and he likes to grandstand. You know, he hasn't called me to wish me his sympathies, you know, I've heard from the Governor of New Jersey, I've heard from Joe Biden last night. They show empathy and caring and kindness and that's really lacking in the President.
--------------------------
CNN Newsroom
10/21/20
10:48 AM ETPOPPY HARLOW: So an Ohio farmer who voted for the President in 2016 is now leading a push to stop the President's re-election. His name is Christopher Gibbs. He's the President of Rural America 2020. He posted these billboards in Iowa and Georgia, calling them superspreader events. … He said he's left of Republican party and will vote for Joe Biden. It's good to have you.
CHRISTOPHER GIBBS [Farmer]: Thank you.
HARLOW: You're kind on an island when it comes to your fellow farmers. When you look at polling over the summer, 75% of farmers in the United States polled say they're going to vote for the President. What I find interesting it's an even higher percentage than 2016. Why do you think your message is not swaying them?
GIBBS: Well the President has got farmers across the Midwest and really all across the United States in a financial snare with the trade war, or I should say war on trade is what I call it. When the President started the war on trade clear back in March of 2018, what happened immediately is we lost confidence in our foreign markets and foreign markets are how agriculture brings dollars back to rural communities. Certainly we lost all of the trade that we were doing to China with soybeans. So what the President did at that point was he extracted dollars from the Monte Crib corporation, from a $30 billion fund within USDA, to start paying farmers off to make up the difference. And how that's worked over time is $12 billion in 2018, then $16 billion, and then $19 billion, and then about a month ago $14 billion, and congress is probably going to weigh in, if they ever get their act together, on another stimulus for more dollars. I'll tell you, on my farm, this is going to end up most likely this year going to be more than 50% of my net farm income is going to come directly from the taxpayer. So farmers are trapped. They aren't able to get out of that snare because our markets haven't totally returned, and so they continue to support the President. And that's certainly unfortunate.
HARLOW: So your point is taxpayer funded consistent bailouts of farmers is making them whole, but it's not whole because of -- because of just their crops, et cetera. I hear that. But when we look at the USDA farm income data this year, it's on track to be $103 billion, that's 65% higher than 2016. I hear your point, a lot of it is because of these bailouts but it is still also maintaining farmer support for the President. I guess the question is what's the goal with these billboards? It doesn't seem like it's taking away support from the President among your fellow farmers?
GIBBS: Keep in mind the billboards were just up a week or so ago, but rural America 2020 what I'm involved with, we're up in six states. We're up in the battleground states if you will, Iowa, Michigan, Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Minnesota I think I said. All of those states we have steering committees. Steering committees, we have over 40 folks that are professional folks, farmers, teachers, retired legislators, the whole gamut. What these folks do is bring to us what's important in these rural areas. What's important, like your previous guest said, was rural health care. Rural health care is extremely important. So what we did with the billboards was start that conversation. It's true these were superspreader events and that's scaring the dickens out of folks in these rural areas.
HARLOW: I have 20 seconds left. You're not just leaving the President, you're leaving the entire Republican party. Why leave the whole party?
GIBBS: The party doesn't exist the way I came up. I came up as a Reagan Republican, bush Republican. In this party, there is no fiscal responsibility. That's out the window. There's no free trade. There's no diplomacy. There's no statesmanship and pro-life is certainly in question when you have folks running around saying they won't wash a mask because it's my body, my choice.
