It was another one of those liberal-media, "move along, nothing to see here" moments.
On CNN's New Day this morning, the crew did its best to utterly dismiss the significance of nine military ballots, seven of which were identified as being for President Trump [the two others apparently still sealed], having been found discarded in a Pennsylvania dumpster.
Co-host Alisyn Camerota conducted an echo-chamber conversation with CNN election analyst and ProPublica reporter Jessica Huseman. The pair took turns downplaying the importance of the troubling event:
- "It hardly suggests any sort of widespread problem, whatsoever."
- "There’s really nothing about this that would suggest a larger problem."
- "It does not suggest an overwhelming problem . . . I just don’t think that there’s any evidence of that."
- "We don't know what 'discarded' even means."
At the end of the segment, Camerota put a dismissive capper on it, calling the ballots in a dumpster just "hiccups." Hold your breath and they'll go away.
Note: instead of focusing on the ominous implications of the ballot dump, Camerota and Huseman fretted over the fact that the Department of Justice had issued a press release about it. Guess the DOJ hadn't gotten CNN's "move along" memo. Huseman even offered some unintentional humor, saying the DOJ's issuance of a press release "smacked of partisanship . . . that the media and Democrats have really been concerned about this entire season." Yeah, because if there's one thing the MSM—in cahoots with the Democrats—is concerned about, it's partisanship!
For example, three years ago on this same program, that nonpartisan Chris Cuomo dismissed new revelations of Attorney General Loretta Lynch's role in the Hillary Clinton e-mail probe as "political tribalism."
Note that Camerota and Huseman managed to avoid even mentioning that the ballots had been found in a dumpster. Huseman delicately described the situation as... "how the ballots ended up where they did."
CNN, we got your hiccups right here. Imagine how the network would report it if a bunch of Biden ballots had been found in similar circumstances: "Breaking News: American Democracy in the Dumpster!"
CNN's dismissal of the dumping of Trump military ballots was sponsored in part by Rocket Mortgage, and Home Advisor
Here's the transcript.
CNN
New Day
9/25/20
6:42 am EDTALISYN CAMEROTA: Now let’s talk about another thing in Pennsylvania. And that’s these nine discarded ballots. It sounds like they were military ballots that people might have thought were mail-in ballots when they figured out they were military ballots, they threw them out.
There were nine. That hardly suggests any sort of widespread problem whatsoever. However, the Department of Justice felt compelled to get involved and issue a press release about this. So what does that tell us?
JESSICA HUSEMAN: You know, it’s really stunning to me that the DOJ issued a press release. It’s obviously not policy for the DOJ to comment on investigations that are still pending. And so, that was a striking thing for them to do. And given that they identified how these ballots were cast, which is very much not in line with America’s history of maintaining secrecy in ballots and is, in fact, the exact reason why Pennsylvania’s secret ballot envelopes, inner envelopes are being litigated right now, you know, it was just a really stunning announcement that kind of smacked of partisanship, the exact kind of partisanship out of the DOJ that the media and Democrats have really been concerned about this entire season.
And so, what we don’t know is what "discarded" even means. So it said that the ballots were discarded. We’re really not clear as to what that meant or how the ballots ended up where they did or why. It’s clear from Pennsylvania officials, that these were mistaken for something they weren’t. It was a very small number of ballots. And also, this county went overwhelmingly for Trump in 2016. So most of the ballots, you know, they’re aware of whose name was on seven of the nine ballots, and that seven of those nine ballots were cast for Donald Trump is not that surprising.
So there’s really nothing about this that would suggest a larger problem. It is certainly true that these nine ballots should be investigated and what happened to them should be figured out, because every vote does count and these nine ballots will matter. But it does not suggest an overwhelming problem, as if — which Trump’s campaign, yesterday, tried to play it off as. And I just don’t think that there’s any evidence of that.
CAMEROTA: That’s really helpful. Because I think that that’s the upshot of all of this. Yes, there are these hiccoups. People are desperately trying to iron them out over the next 40 days. But on a large scale, we are being assured by election officials everywhere that they are going to get this right.
