It wasn't as graphic as the fake bloody, severed head of Trump that Kathy Griffin infamously held up. But in her own way, CNN's Audie Cornish lumped Trump into the same category as history's most famous victim of the guillotine.
Cornish kicked off today's CNN This Morning by slyly slipping in an analogy between President Trump and Marie Antoinette--the French queen who was beheaded by the guillotine.
Commenting on Trump's statement that, given the new tariffs, "maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls," here's how Cornish rephrased Trump:
"Let them buy fewer dolls!"
That was an echo of the phrase attributed to Marie Antoinette in reaction to being informed that the peasants had no bread:
"Let them eat cake!"
Continuing her attack on Trump, in the same segment Cornish did hold something up. It was the front page of today's business section of the New York Times, with a graph of the economy in which the part showing a dip was displayed as Trump's autograph [see screencap.]
Concluded Cornish:
"This is the defining image of the Trump economy so far. It's a red line, and it's down when he shows up."
Note: Cornish continued her habit of assembling left-leaning panels. Today's array consisted of resident CNN gravitas grump Stephen Collinson, Jackie Kucinich, the Boston Globe's DC bureau chief and daughter of hyper-liberal former congressman Dennis Kucinich, and Axios political reporter Brittany Gibson, whose previous stops included the far-left American Prospect.
Here's the transcript.
CNN This Morning
5/1/25
6:00 am EDTAUDIE CORNISH: It's Thursday, May 1st. Here's what's happening right now on CNN This Morning.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls, you know?
CORNISH: Hey: let them buy fewer dolls. President Trump plays defense and casts blame amid new signs that the economy is feeling the impact of his trade war.
. . .Trump has been trying to say, oh, no, no, no, this is just a hangover from the Biden years. And in fact, maybe even the next couple of reports might be his fault, too. So here's how he tried to explain that.
TRUMP: This is Biden's economy because we took over on January 20th. And I think you have to get us a little bit of time to get moving. But this is the Biden economy. This is a quarter that we looked at today. And I took, we took, all of us together. We came in on January 20th. So this is Biden. And you could even say the next quarter is sort of Biden.
CORNISH: [Holding up front page of NYT's Business section] OK, so this is not, like, exactly mapped. This is a little them having a little satire here.
But I do think this is the defining image of the Trump economy so far that people know.
Which is like, it's a red line and it's down when he shows up.
