In a report that was somehow supposed to be comedy, CNN reporter Jeanne Moos ended Monday’s Erin Burnett OutFront by comparing President Trump to infamous mob bosses, both real and fictional. “When President Trump referred to his former attorney as a ‘rat’ for talking to the government, critics came scurrying,” she quipped, later mocking how the President “knows all the best words, mob words.”
Moos played a soundbite Delaware Senator Chris Coons (D) suggesting it made Trump “sound more like a mob boss than the president of the United States.” “And not for the first time,” she declared, “the President had previously tweeted about ‘a John Dean type ‘rat’’, prompting someone to ask sarcastically, ‘Is this your James Cagney imitation?’”
After playing a clip of James Cagney in the 1932 film Taxi!, Moos suggested Trump may be more of a Sopranos kind of guy. “The President has tweeted admiringly of how Paul Manafort ‘refused to ‘break’’. He wondered, ‘who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone or Manafort.’ Former FBI Director James Comey noted a similarity,” she continued.
“I had a flashback to my days investigating the mafia, la cosa nostra,” Comey once said in one of his many self-serving TV appearances. She also pointed out how CBS’s Late Show host, Stephan Colbert, mocked Trump as being a too weak to head an organized crime family, saying “Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes but I sleep with the filet-o-fishes.”
Kicking the comparison up a notch, Moos claimed: “you could almost mix up quotes from Donald Trump with quotes from the actual don of a crime family.” Of course, she was speaking about a ridiculous piece by The New York Times:
“Who said it: Trump or Gotti?” asked The New York Times. “He doesn't know me but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way,” was Trump, not Gotti, responding to a Joe Biden taunt about fighting Trump.
“Working in construction, Donald Trump couldn't entirely avoid the mob,” she suggested. Her evidence? A joke Trump once told to former Late Show host David Letterman back in 1998:
DAVID LETTERMAN: Do you use mob concrete or not?
TRUMP: Well, it is the best concrete.
“And President Trump knows all the best words, mob words,” Moos mocked, referring to an old statement Trump made, as the theme music to The Godfather began to play over another soundbite of Trump talking about “flipping”.
And if you were wondering what host Erin Burnett thought about all this, she concluded her program by praising Moos: “What a parting shot, wonderful by Jeanne as always.” This is CNN.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront
December 17, 2018
7:57:57 p.m. EasternERIN BURNETT: Tonight, President Trump's tough talk goes to the mattresses. Here's Jeanne.
[Cuts to video]
JEANNE MOOS: When President Trump referred to his former attorney as a “rat” for talking to the government, critics came scurrying.
SEN. CHRIS COONS: Frankly, makes him sound more like a mob boss than the president of the United States.
MOOS: And not for the first time, the President had previously tweeted about “a John Dean type ‘rat’”, prompting someone to ask sarcastically, “is this your James Cagney imitation?”
JAMES CAGNEY (Taxi!): Come out and take it you dirty yellow belly rat or I’ll give you it through the door!
MOOS: Or maybe the President prefers the Sopranos.
TONY SOPRANO: Three months ago by you, the rat [bleep] was the second [bleep] coming.
MOOS: The President has tweeted admiringly of how Paul Manafort “refused to ‘break’”. He wondered, ‘who was treated worse, Alfonse Capone or Manafort.’ Former FBI Director James Comey noted a similarity.
STEPHAN COLBERT: The way the Trump administration is organized reminded him of something.
JAMES COMEY: I had a flashback to my days investigating the mafia, la cosa nostra.
MOOS: But Colbert didn't think the President was tough enough to be a mob boss.
COLBERT: Luca Brasi sleeps with the fishes but I sleep with the filet-o-fishes.
MOOS: Another phrase the President uses:
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Flipping, they call it. I know all about flipping.
MOOS: You know, you could almost mix up quotes from Donald Trump with quotes from the actual don of a crime family. “Who said it: Trump or Gotti?” asked The New York Times. “He doesn't know me but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way,” was Trump, not Gotti, responding to a Joe Biden taunt about fighting Trump.
Working in construction, Donald Trump couldn't entirely avoid the mob.
DAVID LETTERMAN (1998): Do you use mob concrete or not?
TRUMP: Well, it is the best concrete.
MOOS: And President Trump knows all the best words, mob words.
TRUMP: I know all about flipping. 30-40 years I’ve been watching flippers.
MOOS: Jeanne Moos, CNN New York.
[Cuts back to live]
BURNETT: What a parting shot, wonderful by Jeanne as always.
