Have you ever had an old grand-uncle that you haven't seen in ages and that you have almost completely forgotten about suddenly show up from out of nowhere? His return quickly reminds you why you originally found him so annoying since he is still obsessed about the same grudges upon which he still continues expounding in an aimless manner.
In this case it is former liberal talk show host Phil Donahue who appeared with Brian Stelter on his CNN Reliable Sources show on June 25. Yes, it was the same old by the numbers predictable liberal Phil and, of course, he was obsessed over President Donald Trump. Donahue went into some bizarre places in order to express his hostility towards Trump, starting with his obsession with people taking cell phone pictures at Trump rallies as we shall see in the following clip:
BRIAN STELTER: What do you see? You see a lot of bad news out there?
PHIL DONAHUE: Well --
STELTER: I mean, Five months into the Trump presidency and you're not known for being a very conservative guy.
DONAHUE: No. That's true. I think the press really missed or at least ignored an important story. That is, as Trump walks out at the rallies, you know, all the cell phones above the head that you see from the back?
STELTER: Yes.
DONAHUE: Who are those people?
No mystery. They are people with cell phones who want to record their encounter with President Trump.
DONAHUE: The mayor of South Bend, Indiana, Pete Buttigieg, is the one who is saying his constituents are looking at all of this and saying, what about me?
I think the mainstream media has -- it's Trump, Trump, Trump, Trump. They haven't drilled down on why is he president? How did this happen?
And I think they're going to discover -- well, I think it's already revealed. These are angry people. These are -- as we know now -- white working class people. Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Michigan.
These are the people who make things. Or -- and they don't -- maybe they haven't had a raise in eight years. The rumor is that their company is being sold. Their kids can't pay back their college loans.
They come back exhausted from their day at the factory. And they read the paper where a guy in a hedge fund made a million dollars on Thursday.
You can't do this to people. Sooner or later, they're going to go kaboom. And they did. And the kaboom expressed itself in the election of Donald Trump.
Same circumstance for Brexit. David Leonhardt, new...
STELTER: "New York Times," yes.
Yes, time now for Donahue to flit to another anti-Trump topic to ramble aimlessly about.
DONAHUE: A new voice on the op-ed page, and I think a welcome one, had a fascinating piece just this week. He makes the point that the reason -- the people who elected Donald Trump president didn't vote. If...
STELTER: You mean because so many people didn't vote.
And now Donahue rambles on and on about how Trump got elected because so many people didn't vote.
DONAHUE: Yes, right.
The victory for -- or at least the people who cause him to lose would be the people who didn't vote who wouldn't have voted for him. It's a little bit of a difficult thing to grasp.
STELTER: I made that mistake on air yesterday. I said on CNN, oh, well, 46 percent of the country voted for President Trump.
Actually, no, about 19 percent of the country voted for Trump, and then a little bit more for Clinton, and then a lot of people didn't vote.
DONAHUE: Hypocrisy is killing us.
We're running around America -- America -- and at least half of us don't vote. Only 17 percent of 18-to-24 -- the earliest voters are not voting at all. Older voters have a better record, to be sure.
Okay, enough with that shtick, Phil. Could you now bore us with another anti-Trump aimless ramble?
DONAHUE: I mean, this is the Republican mantra. The only thing government should do is build things that go boom. And we have people out here whose financial strength is serious in deficit. And now we have got a health care -- Republicans are sleeping with a time bomb and they're not sure what to do. But it's all making the middle class angry.
And now to Donahue's strange fixation with the young women behind Trump at his recent rally in Iowa:
DONAHUE: And these -- the people are left with television shows that are talking about Trump, Trump, Trump. And I have to say -- and, by the way, he gets on the airplane, a big old airplane, flies anywhere in this country and four cars meet him, all black limousines. And he goes to the nearest, largest venue in that area and sells out. Not an empty seat. Walks in.
And now they're producing these -- this is fascinating me. The other night at his rally, there were four or five really cute white girls. There are black people at those rallies, but you got to look for them. And they're behind him.
STELTER: You're talking about the rally the other day he had in prime time on TV.
DONAHUE: Yes. Well, it's happening more and more.
They're being produced. These little girls are taking his picture. He turns around and faces them and they're taking then -- and then they're showing...
STELTER: You don't think that was a coincidence, huh?
DONAHUE: Oh, come on. This is a brilliant management of a campaign that continues.
Donahue finally leaves behind his obsession with "these little girls" but sounds no less unhinged as he rambles on and on with his Trump antipathy until the sad end of the interview.
