The concept that journalists are neutral when it comes to covering the news and issues the country faces today is nothing short of laughable as poll after poll reveals that the “mainstream media” is not trusted by most people across the country.
Apparently, CNN's At This Hour host Kate Bolduan hasn’t heard that news since she stated during an interview with Republican Congressman Dave Brat of Virginia on Wednesday that “I don’t have a view!”
“Congressman,” Bolduan began, “I want to ask you a little bit about the hurricane relief effort and what we’re seeing out of Florida, the islands, as well as Texas and Louisiana,”
“Moody Analytics just came out with an estimate this week that the cost of the two storms from property loss and lost output,” she stated. “The two storms together could be between $150 and $200 billion.”
“If you don’t get a straight -- in the coming days or weeks -- if it’s not a straight hurricane relief bill, are you going to vote against that hurricane funding as well?”
“No,” Brat replied. “I mean, that hasn’t even come up yet” in Congress.
Bolduan noted that victims of the hurricanes are “very likely to need more federal funding.”
Brat responded:
I see what you’re getting at. Every Republican last week, just to be clear on this, every Republican was going to vote for hurricane relief. Every Republican was going to vote for raising the debt ceiling.
The problem was the intellectually questionable linkage between the two and saying that we have to protect the treasury bill, or something absurd like that,
The Virginia Republican added that “the national debt just crossed $20 trillion this week.”
“Congressman, you say you support both funding for hurricane victims and raising the debt ceiling, but those need to be separate,” the host noted. “You ended up voting against that deal that was struck by the president, but that’s the important bit of this. This deal -- .”
“No, no, no. Kate,” Brat asserted. ”Just so you’ve got it straight, I voted for the hurricane relief the week before, the same number and everything.”
“You voted for the hurricane relief,” Bolduan stated. “You ended up voting against the entire package that came back and ended up being approved and being the final vehicle, but that final package was struck, that deal was struck by the Republican president.”
“I made it very clear,” the guest noted. “I thought it was intellectually not sustainable, On a clean debt ceiling package, which we would never have put on President Obama’s desk but we did on a Republican’s desk. And most of the Republicans in that conference shared that view.”
“Who is to blame for this intellectual dishonesty, if you will?” the host pressed.
“Whoever came up with the plan,” Brat replied. “And so, what's always left out from this is the $20 trillion –- .”
“Does the president deserve any blame on this?” the CNN anchor asked.
“You're asking me for my view,” Brat responded. “So, I mean, I get your view. Let me give the context.”
"No,” Bolduan interrupted. “I don't have a view!”
“The context here -- ,” the Republican tried to continue.
“You and I understand the context of the debt ceiling,” she went on. “I understand, truly understand your position on the debt ceiling -- .”
“Let me spell it out for ten seconds -- ,” Brat again tried to state.
“And why you want to have a debate on spending cuts to go with it,” the host noted.
"We just wasted ten seconds!” the guest indicated. “Let me give you ten seconds. We're $20 trillion in debt. And we have $100 trillion, right?”
He then stated:
I was just at my convocations back home with the kids. The kindergartners are in the Class of 2030, they just told me. Right? They will graduate from college in 2034.
And so, if you do know the context, that is the year that Medicare and Social Security are insolvent.
“I don't think people do know the context,” Brat continued. “Otherwise, there would be more urgency, and they wouldn't put up with the nonsense on the fiscal front."
“If the press would weigh in on the damage,” he added before adding: “It’s a guaranteed fiscal crisis in 2034. Guaranteed in law.”
“If you ask the average voter: How should you vote on a clean debt ceiling increase with no fiscal discipline whatsoever? For the whole country, it’s 90 percent.”
“To my question,” Bolduan said as she tried to get in at least one criticism of the president, “does the president deserve some blame here because he’s the one who struck the deal?”
“On that issue, I totally disagree” with the president," Brat concluded.
