CNN went completely off the rails during Sunday’s “Reliable Sources,” as host/“ridiculous figure” Brian Stelter and his guests labeled President Donald Trump an authoritarian dictator with reckless abandon. After opening the program by calling Trump’s comments about the media “poison,” Stelter turned the floor over to CNN reporter Carl Bernstein who declared, “There's a history of what ‘enemy of the people,’ that phrase means as used by dictators and authoritarians including Stalin, including Hitler.” And he warned that Trump’s words are “masses in the brain that ought to concern” everyone.
But according to Bernstein, his comparison of Trump to Hitler and Stalin doesn’t mean that’s what he was doing. “And I'm not about to say anything comparing about Hitler and Trump, but it’s a demagogue's statement,” he ridiculously claimed.
That smear came after Bernstein argued that “Trump's attacks on the American press as ‘enemies of the American people’ are more treacherous than Richard Nixon's attacks on the press.” And he seemed to be infuriated that there was not a consensus among the public calling for Trump’s impeachment:
And we live in a time now when there is no civic consensus in this country, like there was at the time of Watergate, about acceptable presidential conduct. There was a consensus that Nixon had to leave office because he had breached that acceptable conduct. We have no such acceptable compact among Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals in this country today.
“So, Trump is out there on his own leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy including the press,” Bernstein said, continuing to decry the President of the United States. And there was no push back against the CNN reporter’s outlandish theatrics from the host. Stelter humored him, instead he asked, “Do you have a sense that it's working?” Bernstein responded by pontificating about how Trump was dividing the country.
“We are into terrible authoritarian tendencies that we are seeing in the new president of the United States we've never seen in an American president such open authoritarian moves and rhetoric,” Bernstein ranted, “This is a terrible time we're living in.”
Almost 30 minutes later, the raving Bernstein railed against the President and exclaimed that people needed to heed the words Trump used to talk about the press. Because according to him, they’re equivalent to harmful brain tumors:
In the case of Donald Trump, especially, words matter. His words are an MRI of his mind. And so far that MRI is showing all kinds of masses in the brain that ought to concern not just reporters but people all over this country because they are expressed in demagogic and frightening and treacherous words that have meaning in terms of threats to democracy.
The Washington Post’s Dana Priest seemed to of had enough of listening to Bernstein’s bluster. “I really think at this moment we should eliminate the adjectives and stick to the facts,” she said directly targeting Bernstein and Stelter, “What I'm saying is; right now we should pay attention to the language that we're using and stick to the facts and eliminate the opinion and eliminate the adjectives.”
She also noted that when people pull up the news on their phones they’ll “get a whole series of editorials that tend to be all anti-Trump.” Which, is something Stelter is guilty of turning his show into.
Transcript below:
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CNN
Reliable Sources
February 19, 2017
11:04:00 AM EasternBRIAN STELTER: But when it comes to comparisons to Nixon, there's one expert I must start with. Right there in the top. Carl Bernstein, CNN political analyst, one-half of the famed Woodward and Bernstein team that broke Watergate wide open. Carl, Nixonian. Is that appropriate? Is it fair comparison to make 30 days into Trump's presidency?
CARL BERNSTEIN: Trump's attacks on the American press as ‘enemies of the American people’ are more treacherous than Richard Nixon's attacks on the press. Nixon’s attacks on the press were largely in private. There's a history of what ‘enemy of the people,’ that phrase means as used by dictators and authoritarians including Stalin including Hitler. And I'm not about to say anything comparing about Hitler and Trump, but it’s demagogue's statement.
And we live in a time now when there is no civic consensus in this country, like there was at the time of Watergate, about acceptable presidential conduct. There was a consensus that Nixon had to leave office because he had breached that acceptable conduct. We have no such acceptable compact among Republicans, Democrats, conservatives, liberals in this country today.
So, Trump is out there on his own leading a demagogic attack on the institutions of free democracy including the press.
STELTER: Do you have a sense that it's working? Cause, one reaction would be these are just words. These are just words. He's not taking actions. He's not threatening news outlets, trying to shut places down, filing lawsuits and things like that. Does it working that his anti-press attacks are actually having an impact?
BERNSTEIN: I think it's working in the sense of playing to his base and further dividing the country. Is it working in terms of also scaring the hell out of a lot of Republicans on Capitol Hill who think he is off on a ride that is dangerous to American democracy and are they quaking? Many of them without speaking out, yes. We are into terrible authoritarian tendencies that we are seeing in the new president of the United States we've never seen in an American president such open authoritarian moves and rhetoric. This is a terrible time we're living in.
…
STELTER: Jeff, your impression here. Carl is using words like authoritarian would you agree with that characterization?
JEFF GREENFIELD: Well, that's certainly the whisper of it. When you use a term like ‘enemy of the people.’ A lot of people have pointed to totalitarian regimes that use that phrase whether it was Stalin or whether it was Hitler. And I'm certainly not going there at this point. I would point out where, I think, we have to keep a sharp eye is whether we go beyond words. Remember, Richard Nixon first sent out the Vice President Agnew to attack the media as an unelected elite based their coverage of the Vietnam War. And more seriously there were plans in the second term to use the government's power to do things like take television stations away from companies that own newspapers and challenge licenses.
So what would be useful, rather than just focusing on the words is see whether or not this takes the form of action in which the power of the government whether it's anti-trust, tax laws, whatever. Whether that is used. CNN is part of Time Warner which is engaged in a huge merger effort with AT&T. Does the government oppose that on what might extensively be sound anti-trust grounds but are really doing it to punish Time Warner and CNN? That’s the sort of thing I would like to keep an eye on.
…
STELTER: It strikes me as something I've been saying privately. And I haven't said it on television, I think I probably should, which is as journalist I think we need to think about how bad it could get for the news media. Meaning, we shouldn't have a failure of imagination here. I hope that this administration does not go down the road of blocking licenses or auditing journalists and things like that. But we need to know what's possible and imagine what's possible and prepare for it and certainly media lawyers are doing that.
…
11:30:47 AM Eastern
STELTER [to Dana Priest]: You're describing the motivations of leakers. And Carl, I wonder if you can provide some insight into this as well. You worked with a number of other CNN colleagues on the stories about that Russian dossier—that Dossier of Russia and Trump. You’ve been working anonymous sources about this. There's been claims that this is all just angry, former Obama staffers, loyalists to Obama leaking. Can you give us insight to whether that's true.
BERNSTEIN: First off all, the whole process of reporting is to piece together from various sources at various institutions with various points of view, a story that is based on fact to the extent that you can. And that's what was done on these stories that CNN has done. Some of the sources may well be from close to Donald Trump. Some of the sources might be former Obama administration officials. Some might be still in the intelligence administration agencies in positions that are career positions. All over the place some are in the private sector.
Donald Trump has no idea of where of these stories are coming from and the idea of leak investigation here as I've said earlier is to intimidate. But one other thing about Trump, it was said in the earlier segment that we should not pay too much attention to his words and look at just what he does. In the case of Donald Trump, especially, words matter. His words are an MRI of his mind. And so far that MRI is showing all kinds of masses in the brain that ought to concern not just reporters but people all over this country because they are expressed in demagogic and frightening and treacherous words that have meaning in terms of threats to democracy.
STELTER: Dana, I see you shaking your head.
DANA PRIEST: Yeah, I mean, I really think at this moment we should eliminate the adjectives and stick to the facts. I mean, when you look on your mobile device at what all the mainstream media is reporting on, you'll get --right after the first couple stories—You’ll get a whole series of editorials that tend to be all anti-Trump. On the one hand I'm not condoning his attacks on the media. It's not unusual for a president to not like the media, but what I'm saying is right now we should pay attention to the language that we're using and stick to the facts and eliminate the opinion and eliminate the adjectives. If we do that I think we have a better chance of convincing the people that we're not for anybody in particular but we are from unearthing as close to the truth as we get.
