Paging CNN president Chris Licht. Do you remember the request you made last June that your personnel not use the highly partisan term "The Big Lie" to describe skepticism about the conduct of the 2020 election? Well, perhaps you need to emphasize that request again to the Sunday host of CNN's Inside Politics, Abby Phillip, who repeated that phrase you frowned upon not once but twice in just a little over a minute and a half.
The total number of times "The Big Lie" was invoked on Sunday was actually three since the Washington Post White House Bureau Chief also recited the term during that time frame which gives us yet another example as to the political bias of that newspaper.
A June 15 Mediaite article made it clear what Licht's attitude was toward "The Big Lie" narrative: "New CNN Boss Chris Licht Wants Staff to Stop Calling Trump’s Election Claims ‘The Big Lie’."
New CNN president Chris Licht discouraged staff from using “the big lie” to refer to former President Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 election, Mediaite has learned.
On a Tuesday conference call with management and show executive producers, Licht was asked for his thoughts on “the big lie,” and said he preferred that staff avoid the term. He made clear this was a preference, not a mandate, but staffers have taken it as a clear directive from the new boss.
He encouraged producers to instead use the terms “Trump election lie” or “election lies” in banners and graphics.
According to a source, Licht argued that using “the big lie” makes the mistake of adopting branding used by the Democratic Party, thereby weakening the objectivity of the network.
Abby Phillip must have gotten the message because despite using "The Big Lie" term frequently before Chris Licht publicly frowned upon it, after June 19 she ditched the term... until last Sunday.
ABBY PHILLIP: It makes to your point about the number of election deniers. I mean, this has become an article of faith in the Republican Party. I don't care how you slice up. And a lot of these campaigns, if you don't believe the Big Lie, you can't get on the ballot.....
TOLUSE OLORUNNIPA, WHITE HOUSE BUREAU CHIEF, THE WASHINGTON POST: Yeah, I don't think that's been enough attention pay that these are going to be people in positions of power who are going to have the ability to change elections in 2024 and beyond if they so choose. That is something that a number of these Republicans have tried to not really talk about in the campaign trail, in part because they won the primary on the Big Lie......
PHILLIP: Yeah. I mean, I think we as a country probably need to grapple with how we got to this point, right? How something so flagrantly untrue, that Trump knew is untrue, as proven in the hearings over the last several months, could end up being an article of faith.
And, Susan Peter, you guys wrote in your book that after years of experience, Trump knew how to sell a Big Lie. He had done it many times before.
So why the sudden use of the term "The Big Lie" by Abby Phillip which was specifically discouraged if not "mandated" by her boss? Could it be that the Democrats are so worried about the midterm elections that her Democrat party friends urged her in desperation to resurrect it? It would be interesting to be a fly on the wall if there is a meeting between Phillip and Chris Licht as she explains why she is again using "The Big Lie" after it has been discouraged for months.
