During a Tuesday panel discussion on CNN, John Avlon -- editor-in-chief of the liberal Daily Beast website and a CNN political analyst -- claimed that with all the turmoil surrounding GOP President Donald Trump, “the only thing that unites his coalition right now seems to be hatred of Hillary Clinton.”
Avlon then described the situation as a “Golden Oldies station” before comparing it to “the Saturday Night Massacre,” which happened when Republican President Richard Nixon fired special prosecutor Archibald Cox during the Watergate scandal on October 20, 1973, which then led to the resignation of the attorney general and the deputy attorney general.
“Look,” Avlon stated, “he’s trying to back channel the Saturday Night Massacre, that’s what’s happening. If [Attorney General Jeff] Sessions resigns, then you appoint someone else who then assumes power.”
Chris Cizzilla, an American advocacy journalist and politics editor for CNN, “agreed by saying: “That’s right.”
Avlon asserted that Trump would then state: “You know, the special counsel thing is really a terrible distraction,” and the new attorney general would indicate: “I’m going to be in a position to investigate more effectively because I’m not directly connected with the campaign, depending on who it is. And that’s the larger game here.”
The CNN analyst continued:
It’s also about repeated attempts; you know, he goes after the independent journalists and independent judiciary consistently because those are forces that can constrain and hold presidential power accountable, and that’s why this all demands our attention.
And the Hillary Clinton stuff is simply because the only thing that unites his coalition right now seems to be hatred of Hillary Clinton. It’s a Golden Oldies station.
According to an article at the Legal Insurrection website by former longtime NewsBusters contributor Mark Finkelstein, Avlon “was the second CNNer to take a swipe at the Trump base” that day.
“Earlier,” he stated, “David Gregory [a political analyst for CNN since 2016] said that a large part of “Trump nation” is the “nativist right.”
Finkelstein asserted that Nativism is defined as “prejudice in favor of natives against strangers, which in present-day terms means a policy that will protect and promote the interests of indigenous or established inhabitants over those of immigrants.”
“The term is understood on the left as the equivalent of racist,” he added.
Meanwhile, President Trump is continuing to criticize Sessions, as in his tweet of this morning:
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has taken a VERY weak position on Hillary Clinton crimes (where are E-mails & DNC server) & Intel leakers.
Of course, the anchors and analysts at CNN are delighted to take a shot at Trump, even if they have to reach back 44 years to the Watergate scandal to do it.
