CNN: Rudy Trying to 'Bilk' Trump Campaign for 'Air Quotes' Legal Services

November 18th, 2020 1:23 PM

CNN has gone from hour-on-the-hour Russian collusion updates to hour-on-the-hour shaming Trump for not conceding the election. At the end of a panel discussion Wednesday morning trashing the Trump legal team for the futility of their court challenges, New Day co-host John Berman closed it out by trashing Rudy Giuliani as a con man who's not very mentally acute. It sounded a bit like a Trump tweet. 

JOHN BERMAN: And by the way, you know, there are reports in The Times and other places that Rudy Giuliani wants to charge $20,000 a day for his "legal services." And yes, that did merit air quotes right there. And there have been these questions about, oh, is Rudy maybe lacking mental acuity, has he slipped a little bit? 

You know, I think we can stop grading him on a curve. Take him at his word that he knows what he's doing here. He’s trying to bilk the Trump campaign for money at the same time demonstrating questionable moral values. And the question about whether this taints his legacy?This is his legacy at this point. 

Note the screencap of Berman's air quotes regarding Rudy's "legal services."

John Berman air quotes CNN New Day 11-18-20So . . . CNN is all up in arms about Rudy supposedly trying to "bilk" the Trump campaign for spurious "services." Such sudden solicitousness for Team Trump! Berman accused Rudy of "questionable moral values," and raised issues of his possible loss of "mental acuity." And Berman sneeringly dismissed Rudy's ostensibly tainted "legacy."

Question: when did Berman, or anyone else at CNN:

  • Accuse the Biden family of "trying to bilk" foreigners for Hunter's air-quotes "services?"
  • Accuse the Biden family of "questionable moral values," or speak derisively of the Biden family's "legacy," in light of its history of influence-peddling?
  • Question Joe Biden's "mental acuity?" 

For that matter, did CNN ever investigate and report on the legal fees that lawyer David Boies charged the Gore campaign during its 37-day long challenge to the 2000 election results in Florida? Was he "bilking" Gore? Oh, no! CNN burnished his legacy as a wondrous thing in 2000: 

No lawyer in memory has ever won so much by losing. During the entire postelection ordeal, Boies was at its center daily, showing the all-news nation the astonishing gifts that have been thrilling his clients and irritating his more peevish opponents for three decades. Fourteen years ago, the New York Times Magazine certified his status with a cover piece headlined THE WALL STREET LAWYER EVERYONE WANTS.

CNN's peevish accusations against Rudy Giuliani were sponsored in part by Shark Vacuums and VisionWorks.