There were still more than 10 months to go, but John Avlon had the early lead in the race for The Year's Most Inapt Analogy. Predictably, on Wednesday, CNN This Morning raked the House Republicans over the coals for their failure to get the necessary votes to impeach Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, or pass a stand-alone Israel aid bill.
Speaking of rakes, co-anchor Phil Mattingly kicked things off with this mocking depiction of Republicans: "This was clearly another day of a full-on pursuit of the Republican agenda of sequentially finding rakes and then stepping on them."
Commenting on the situation, Avlon dropped a World War II analogy that was contextually dubious at best:
So much losing. House Republicans have shown themselves to be unwilling and unable to govern in the national interest . . . So many levels of failure . . . So they are playing politics with the border. And they are putting lives at risk in Ukraine . . . In the fullness of history, this is going to look like a Neville Chamberlain moment.
Whuh? Chamberlain was the British Prime Minister who met with Hitler in 1938. After agreeing to cede portions of Czechoslovakia in return for Hitler's empty promise not to make any further territorial demands, Chamberlain infamously claimed that he had achieved "peace for our time."
Chamberlain had gone down in history as the embodiment of the failure of appeasement.
How Avlon analogized that to events in the House yesterday is beyond comprehension. As you'll see in the clip, there was something of a stunned silence on the set before Mattingly eventually moved on.
Here's the transcript. Click "expand" to read:
CNN This Morning
2/7/23
6:06 am ETPHIL MATTINGLY: Let's bring in CNN political commentator S.E. Cupp, CNN senior political analyst and anchor John Avlon.
Look, this was clearly another day of a full-on pursuit of the Republican agenda of sequentially finding rakes and then stepping on them.
I think what I'm trying to figure out longer-term here is, there are real-world consequences to what's happening right now with legislative inaction. And you look at the scale of the national security package generally. Also, what's going on at the border. Is there a near-term resolution for this?
S.E. CUPP: Oh, I don't have much optimism. This Congress isn't, isn't solving most problems, and Republicans are playing politics with policy. They've decided that politics, i.e., trying to impeach Mayorkas -- that's a political project -- is more important than a policy win which they asked for and got! And then are now refusing.
So there, there, there's now an effort on the left to say, okay, maybe we had a hand in breaking this, but you're refusing to fix it. And so now you own it. We'll see if voters buy that, but it's a good messaging trick.
POPPY HARLOW: John, you want to look at the big picture, as sort of the big story here of House Speaker Mike Johnson so far.
JOHN AVLON: So much losing. House Republicans have shown themselves to be unwilling and unable to govern in the national interest.
CUPP: Uninterested in it!
AVLON: They are. This is, this is so many levels of failure.
Yesterday in particular, right? Couldn't get a stand-alone Israel bill. Couldn't get the Mayorkas vote. Have gutted provisions that were bipartisan, that Republicans requested, to strengthen the border. The Wall Street Journal and others saying this is the best border bill -- Donald Trump couldn't get this. And, and now they're holding -- what's really revealing -- they're holding Ukraine hostage. That was always the objection. Because if you put Ukraine supplemental funds up for a vote, it would pass. It would pass.
So they are playing politics with the border. And they are putting lives at risk in Ukraine.
And, and in the fullness of history, this is going to look like a Neville Chamberlain moment.
