CNN took a brief break from obsessing over the GOP’s “crisis” to actually focus on Democrat Party drama on this morning’s New Day. Co-hosts John Berman and Brianna Keilar spoke with author and Atlantic journalist Edward-Isaac Dovere about his new book revealing how perturbed President Obama was by President Trump’s win in 2016 and how he even tried to influence the Mueller investigation.
None of these revelations were reported as scandalous by CNN, however. In fact the journalists seemed to delight in how heavily involved the former president was behind the scenes.
After the hosts marveled at the drama between the First Family and Kamala Harris when the senator accused Biden of being a racist during one of the primary debates, the amused co-hosts moved on to President Obama’s own R-rated rants against President Trump, revealed in the book. The words, “New book: Obama called Trump ‘racist’ and ‘corrupt motherf***er’” appeared on screen. The book also reports an unhinged Obama calling Trump a “madman,” “f***ing lunatic” and “sexist pig” behind the scenes, though CNN didn’t put those insults up on screen.
John Berman was fascinated by Obama’s anger at Trump’s 2016 election win, calling it “deeply interesting:”
You know, yes, what you just reported there, I think maybe the splashiest because of all the potty mouths involved there. But to me some of the most deeply interesting stuff that I hadn’t read before was about president Obama, lots of stuff and how he went from trying to project cool about Trump's election into a kind of disbelief, pretty quickly, Isaac.
The Atlantic writer and Berman delighted in the amount of cursing revelations in the book, before Dovere labeled this as the former president’s “passion:”
There were passionate moments in the book from Democrats including from President Obama himself. What you see in the way President Obama reacted to President Trump's election and then his presidency. is a process going on for Democrats overall at first thinking, okay, maybe this will be okay, we won't have so much to object to, to very quickly changing and getting more and more worried about it.
Dovere went on to boast that Obama fretted after the 2016 election that there was more racist Trump voters in the country than he realized, which also fascinated CNN when he said it last November, and is not dissimilar to what his wife has been saying about conservatives for years:
You see, for example, in the book there's a quote from Ben Rhodes, one of Obama's closest advisers who says that Trump's election made Obama feel like there was more racism in the country than he had actually realized and that he had to deal with it more. Rhodes said to me that Obama had been like Jackie Robinson knowing people were heckling him but ignoring it, and once he saw what Trump was like even during the transition had gotten much darker about it and was no longer able to ignore it in that same way.
Co-host Keilar marveled at this with, “It's like a moment of personal crisis, I think that's part of what makes it so interesting in the wake of Trump's election.”
A little while later, Berman again admitted how “surprised” he was by stories in the book revealing how highly political Obama was behind the scenes during the Trump presidency. Dovere touted how Obama was trying to “protect [Robert] Mueller” from Trump:
BERMAN: Look. I was genuinely surprised in your reporting. It's always great when you can read these books and be surprised by things you just didn't know. I did not know how politically active Barack Obama was behind the scenes during the Trump presidency. How many different things he was sort of involved in. So you write after Trump fired Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Obama reached out to George W. Bush about putting out a statement in support of the Mueller investigation or at least their teams talked. I mean, what exactly went on here?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE: You have to remember the moment. It's right after the Democrats do really well in the midterms in 2018. Then Trump fires Jeff Sessions. There's a panic, how far is this going to go, is this going to be another "Saturday night massacre?" And already Obama and his team have been concerned about the path this might take, and they thought, do we have to protect Mueller? And an idea started to be talked about among some of Obama's advisers to maybe say, okay, get a letter together, a statement together with George Bush and say, here's a Republican president, here's a democratic president, we both had hired this guy, an FBI director. Obama extended his term. He was hired under Bush. It never got to the level of Obama calling Bush for it, but there was some testing of the waters among the Obama folks with Bush folks to see if they'd be interested. There was not interest. Bush has been very clear that he doesn't want to be involved in politics or anything else, and that was the sense he gave him then.
The interview ended by going back to the Obamas and Michelle Obama having a pity party bout the idea President Trump could win re-election. Berman prodded their guest to explain why the former First Lady hadn’t been out on the campaign trail during the 2020 season. Dovere explained how depressed she was by what Trump’s potential win “meant for America:”
[S]he was in a deep funk about the Trump presidency. She was depressed about what it meant for America. She was depressed about the possibility that Trump might be re-elected, and it was so much she was turning down requests to show up on the trail...she was not there because she felt like she couldn't bring herself to do it.
New Day is sponsored by AT&T. Contact them at the Conservatives Fight Back page here.
Read transcript portions below:
CNN New Day
5/20/2021
JOHN BERMAN: You know, yes, what you just reported there, I think maybe the splashiest because of all the potty mouths involved there. But to me some of the most deeply interesting stuff that I hadn’t read before was about president Obama, lots of stuff and how he went from trying to project cool about Trump's election into kind of disbelief, pretty quickly Isaac.
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE, THE ATLANTIC: Yeah and by the way if you’re interested in curses, there are a lot of people cursing in the book in a lot of ways.
BERMAN: Thank god.
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE: There were passionate moments in the book from Democrats including from president Obama himself. What you see in the way President Obama reacted to president trump's election and then his presidency. is a process going on for Democrats overall at first thinking, okay, maybe this will be okay, we won't have so much to object to, to very quickly changing and getting more and more worried about it. You see, for example, in the book there's a quote from Ben Rhodes, one of Obama's closest advisers who says that Trump's election made Obama feel like there was more racism in the country than he had actually realized and that he had to deal with it more. Rhodes said to me that Obama had been like Jackie Robinson knowing people were heckling him but ignoring it, and once he saw what Trump was like even during the transition had gotten much darker about it and was no longer able to ignore it in that same way.
BRIANNA KEILAR: It's like a moment of personal crisis, I think that's part of what makes it so interesting in the wake of Trump's election….
…
BERMAN: Look. I was genuinely surprised in your reporting. It's always great when you can read these books and be surprised by things you just didn't know. I did not know how politically active Barack Obama was behind the scenes during the Trump presidency. How many different things he was sort of involved in. So you write after Trump fired Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, Obama reached out to George W. Bush about putting out a statement in support of the Mueller investigation or at least their teams talked. I mean, what exactly went on here?
EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE: You have to remember the moment. It's right after the Democrats do really well in the midterms in 2018. Then Trump fires Jeff Sessions. There's a panic, how far is this going to go, is this going to be another "Saturday night massacre?" And already Obama and his team have been concerned about the path this might take, and they thought, do we have to protect Mueller? And an idea started to be talked about among some of Obama's advisers to maybe say, okay, get a letter together, a statement together with George Bush and say, here's a Republican president, here's a democratic president, we both had hired this guy, an FBI director. Obama extended his term. He was hired under Bush. It never got to the level of Obama calling Bush for it, but there was some testing of the waters among the Obama folks with Bush folks to see if they'd be interested. There was not interest. Bush has been very clear that he doesn't want to be involved in politics or anything else, and that was the sense he gave him then.
