It’s time to call the banners and overthrow the Mad King. At least according to Carl Bernstein during his appearance on Friday morning’s New Day. It was not clear if Bernstein was trying to compare Donald Trump to the ‘Mad King Aerys’ from the popular television show Game of Thrones, but he made several strong comparisons nonetheless: “We are witnessing the Mad King in the final days of his reign, willing to scorch the Earth of his country and bring down the whole system to undermine our whole democracy.”
This was in response to the President’s continuing court battles over the result of the 2020 presidential election. Rather than report on the facts of the situation, the leftist-aligned CNN chose to attack the President, a common trend when calling for him to concede. Bernstein accuses Trump wanting to destroy the country: “it appears more and more that our system cannot handle, was not designed, neither our constitution or our institutions to handle an abrant, Mad king like Donald Trump.”
It is telling that the partisan network laid the blame completely at the feet of the Republicans. Co-host John Berman decried Republicans for allowing Trump’s behavior: “I can answer your question, will they allow it another day, yes. Yes. They've allowed it for nearly three weeks. I’m not saying they should, but they clearly are!”
This conveniently ignores CNN’s own role in sowing discord and doubt on the electoral process. Contrary to their leftist narrative, Trump is not the one to blame for the media’s four-year war against him. It was CNN who insisted that Trump was illegitimate because he ‘colluded’ with Russia. This has constantly been ignored by CNN and its continued cries for unity, how their history of degrading the President and outright mocking opinions they don’t agree with.
The reality is a far cry from Bernstein’s wild claims that Trump is at fault for the cultural divide: “…it may be too little too late, because the confidence in our institutions that Trump has wanted in his sabotage of the country bringing us from a cold civil war to pouring the flames onto that cold civil war and igniting it so we're close to a real cultural civil war.”
But he reality is often ignored by CNN in favor of mirroring Joe Biden and his talking points as they did throughout the broadcast.
This CNN bias was sponsored by Subaru and Liberty Mutual. Click on the links to let them know what you think.
A transcript of the November 20th Coverage is included below:
New Day
11/20/20
8:31 AM ETALISYN CAMEROTA: Okay, breaking news, moments ago, Georgia's Republican Secretary of State confirming that Joe Biden won that state.
BRAD RAFFENSPERGER [Georgia Secretary of State]: I'm a passionate conservative and as I've said before I'm a proud Trump supporter. I was with him early in the 2016 election cycle and he's governed the nation by the same conservative principles that I hold dear. Like other Republicans, I'm disappointed our candidate didn't win Georgia's electoral votes. Close elections sow distrust. People feel their side was cheated. We saw this from the Democrats in 2018, and we see this from Republicans today. Working as an engineer throughout my life, I live by the motto that numbers don't lie. As Secretary of State, I believe that the numbers that we have presented today are correct.
CAMEROTA: Okay, well, despite his loss in Georgia, and despite his repeated failures in court, President Trump is still not admitting defeat, so what can we expect in these next two months until inauguration day? Joining us now, CNN political analyst and journalist and author Carl Bernstein. Great to see you.
CARL BERNSTEIN [CNN Political Analyst]: Good to be with you.
CAMEROTA: I guess let's start there, that was interesting, hearing Secretary Raffensberger, who has had a bullseye on him since he decided to stick with the facts, admitting Joe Biden won, President Trump has had him in his crosshairs and he said I am a proud Trump supporter he just said and that just leads us to what the Republicans the silence of the Republicans as all of this happens. What are your thoughts on why they're staying so silent?
BERNSTEIN: First, he just said what every Republican member of the Senate of the United States should have been saying weeks ago. He did and said what a patriot would do and what our Senators, the Republicans in the U.S. Senate by and large almost all of them have failed to do. Look, let's take a step back here and see what we're talking about. We are witnessing the Mad King in the final days of his reign, willing to scorch the Earth of his country and bring down the whole system to undermine our whole democracy, strip it of its legitimacy, poison the confidence of our people in the institutions and the constitution for Donald Trump's own petulant, selfish, rabid ends. We have a President of the United States for the first time in our history sabotaging this country. That's where we are, and will these Republicans continue to allow it for another day because every day it appears more and more that our system cannot handle, was not designed, neither our constitution or our institutions to handle an abrant, Mad king like Donald Trump.
JOHN BERMAN: I can answer your question, will they allow it another day, yes. Yes. They've allowed it for nearly three weeks. I’m not saying they should, but they clearly are! We have Mitt Romney and Ben Sasse, and nobody else in the U.S. Senate. And today would be a prime time to do it! With the President trying to have Michigan legislators come to the white house so he can convince them to overturn the results of the election.
BERNSTEIN: Let me name say 15 or so Republican Senators, what I'm doing is not violating a journalistic principle because they've told me what I'm about to say but for two or three years I talked to members of staff of the Senators, members of committees, staffpeople, aides, assistants, people who have worked for these people. Look at 15 of these Republican senators who disdain and even despise Donald Trump, have said so to each other. Rob Portman, Lamar Alexander, Roy blunt, Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski, John Cornyn, John Thune, Mitt Romney we know, Mike Bronn, Todd Young, Tim Scott, Marco Rubio, Chuck Grassley, Richard Burr and others, many if not most of these individuals from what I have been told were happy to see Donald Trump defeated in this election, as long as the Senate could be controlled by the Republicans. They've experienced and his pathological lies and know what Donald Trump has done to undermine the confidence in our institutions, in this country. They've lived through the pandemic while his homicidal negligence is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Americans. They know what's going on. Mr. McConnell knows what's going on and finally I'm told in the last 24, 48 hours, I believe he and some others are attempting to find a way to somehow bring the country off the ledge that we are on because of the Mad King and what he is doing while Rudy Giuliani, Steve Bannon and others whisper these conspiracies in his ears. But we have a problem. 70%, 80% of those people who call themselves Republicans now believe because of social media, because of Donald Trump, and his disinformation and his lying, they believe it's been a rigged election and we're going to have to live with the legacy of this sabotage by the President.
CAMEROTA: Carl, it’s really interesting to hear you lay out that litany of Republicans who say one thing publicly and different thing privately obviously to reporters. When you say your sense is from your reporting that they have some sort of plan to walk us off the ledge, well, back from the ledge, I should say, saving us, what would that look like?
BERNSTEIN: Well, first of all, it may be too little too late, because the confidence in our institutions that Trump has wanted in his sabotage of the country bringing us from a cold civil war to pouring the flames onto that cold civil war and igniting it so we're close to a real cultural civil war and perhaps violence because of his refusal to accept the will of the people in the election, because he has attempted and failed at a coup, imagine a coup attempt by a President of the United States to undermine our electoral system. He announced before the election he was going to attempt this coup by voter suppression, by illegitimating the process, saying it was rigged against us and when the votes came in against him, he followed up on the attempt at a coup. So it might be a little late to talk us off the ledge in this country by some of these Senators and I'm not sure if they'll succeed and what it might look like, a few, and I don't know this yet because I'm still trying to report exactly what's going on, there has been resistance as we know in the intelligence community, in the defense community, to some of what Donald Trump has been trying to do or perhaps talking to the President that he cannot invade, use troops, attack Iran in some ways. People are fighting back within our institutions, but it's not clear at all that these Senators will succeed, because can the system actually handle a Donald Trump?
CAMEROTA: Yes.
BERMAN: Carl Bernstein, if there's anyone who is an expert on the final days it's you, literally wrote the book "The final days on the Nixon Presidency" and you're more concerned now than you were then.
BERNSTEIN: Much more concerned.
BERMAN: Thank you.
BERNSTEIN: Nixon left! Republicans convinced him he had to go, and he did.
CAMEROTA: Thank you, Carl. Great to talk to you as always.
