This week, the Media Research Center posted a study of one CNN day showing that the network is obsessed with President Trump and the overwhelming majority of CNN’s experts opining on Trump are highly negative. CNN’s rare allowance of pro-Trump voices often come from commentators they pay to defend Trump. So why insult them when that’s what you pay them to do?
On his primetime show AC360 Friday night, Anderson Cooper interrupted one of Jeffrey Lord's defenses of Trump -- saying he doesn't care what Trump tells the Russians -- by saying "if he took a dump on his desk, you would defend it." Lord laughed, and just kept making his point. Earth to Cooper: You’re paying him to defend Trump. If he didn’t defend Trump, he’d be violating his reason for appearing. And he’s also paid to be insulted as a stooge. But how crude does this paid-contributor combat have to sink? Is this a ratings stunt?
The average Trump voter out in the country would not have laughed. They would have offered him a cruder insult. Or they would have punched him. (I might have said “You let Kathy Griffin kiss your crotch on television after she said "I'm going to tickle your sack," so maybe you shouldn’t lecture about dignity on TV.”)
Cooper tried to soften his sleazy attack: “I mean, I don’t know what he would do that you would not defend,” the CNN host told Lord. “I mean, you’re a loyal guy, I think that speaks well of you.” He apologized a few minutes later: "I was a little crude before, I apologize. I like having your voice on here, and I think you're an important voice to have." Lord replied: "No offense taken." [As you may have noticed, Lord writes a Saturday column for NewsBusters, and did so before getting the CNN deal.]
Cooper also apologized on Twitter: “I regret the crude sentence I spoke earlier tonight and followed it up by apologizing on air. It was unprofessional. I am genuinely sorry.”
The inherent problem with the paid pro-Trump contributor is that CNN hosts are itching to make them defend what they think is indefensible. They wouldn’t force a Clintonista like Paul Begala or Donna Brazile to defend anything they thought was indefensible by Clinton. They’d all gloss over it. They certainly wouldn’t go looking for anonymous sources to report the claim that Bill or Hillary was calling people nut jobs (or worse, like oh, “f---ing Jew bastard,” in Hillary’s case.) They certainly wouldn’t tell Begala or Carville that if Clinton pooped on their desk, they’d defend it.
Over on Fox's The Five, they quickly aired the clip, and Jesse Watters spoke for the Fox viewers: "CNN's been defending Barack Obama taking dumps for eight years."
