In the minutes leading up to CNN's live coverage of Day 2 of the Trump impeachment trial, CNN host John King lectured the Republicans have failed to do any congressional oversight of Hunter Biden, and fellow CNN host Jake Tapper accused GOP senators of “creating an alternate reality” where the President “is truly concerned about corruption.”
JOHN KING: If you don't like Joe Biden, you could certainly ask the question how did the Obama Administration let Joe Biden be in charge of the Ukraine portfolio when his son had that job [advising the oil and gas company Burisma]. That is a fair question.
JAKE TAPPER: You can ask that even if you like Joe Biden.
KING: ...you can raise the question 'Is that a conflict of interest? Is that the right way to do business?' That's fine. It's not germane to the issue of impeachment against the President now.
I would just say this, and I've said it before, the Republicans were in charge of the House from 2013 to 2019. They were not shy about using their oversight authority. They were not. The Republicans have been in charge of the Senate from 2015 until today. If they wanted to call Hunter Biden in for some oversight hearing, they had the right in the House for six years and they didn't do it, and they have the right in the Senate right now. Do it!
It's right after King's double-dog dare where Tapper grew snarky about "reality" and its alternatives:
TAPPER: That's because in order to defend the President's conduct, a lot of these individuals, since they are not willing to say, 'look, what the President did is wrong, I just don't think it's impeachable and I just don't think he should rise to the level.' [Some have, like Sen. Rob Portman.]
They are not willing to say that for whatever reason, they have to create this alternate reality, an alternative reality where President Trump is truly concerned about corruption, even though this is the only instance that we know of where he is ever asked about corruption, even though in the transcript of the call, the rough transcript, the word corruption does not come up. And you have to create this alternate reality and that is one other things we see from these Republican Senators.
During the Clinton impeachment, CNN did not accuse the Democrats of living in an "alternate reality" for months, where Bill Clinton never had sex with an intern. Tapper did not address whether CNN has a problem reporting "alternate reality," with all of their feverish reporting on Russian "collusion." Or the "alternate reality" of CNN guests suggesting Trump would be a larger mass murderer than Hitler, Stalin, and Mao.
As NewsBusters reported earlier, this isn’t the only time Tapper has inserted himself into the impeachment narrative.
The CNN host previously described House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Adam Schiff as stating “very forcefully .… that the reason President Trump needs to be removed from office is because he will cheat to get reelected.”
