CNN's Abby Phillip appeared Friday night on the PBS journalist-roundup Washington Week, and was offered the floor to condemn all the sexism in the Democratic Party now that Elizabeth Warren dropped out of the presidential race.
ROBERT COSTA: A reckoning on gender for the Democratic Party.
ABBY PHILLIP: Yeah, and I think it's been a long time coming. We had a similar conversation after Kamala Harris got out of the race about what is the impact of sexism on this race? But with Warren now out – no women in the race, no people of color, no one in the race under the age of 70, a lot of diversity issues – but for women, I think this cycle has been a lot more about the hardest problems with gender and politics.
This, in factual terms, was not true, since Rep. Tulsi Gabbard is a woman of color under 70 who hasn’t dropped out. (And Warren is over 70.) Leftists love to talk about treating minorities as “erased” or “invisible,” and that’s certainly what reporters like Phillip are doing. Yes, it’s safe to guess Gabbard’s not going to be president, but if you’re hammering anyone about diversity, it’s missing a beat. She continued:
PHILLIP: For a long time, you know, we focused a lot about how, you know, people critiqued what women wore and you know, how they spoke. And all of those things are important too. I think what this election has revealed is that there are deeper biases against women that are at play here. Voters say they don't want to want to vote for a woman because they don't perceive women to be leaders, or they do perceive them to be shrill. They have a lot of negative connotations associated with women. It's not just men. It's also women voters as well. This is the hardest part, and I think this campaign revealed there wasn't a whole lot of talk about what people were wearing this cycle, but the gender bias was underneath the surface. That's where we are now.
On January 14, Phillip mangled facts while moderating a CNN debate, Phillip repeated an unconfirmed CNN “scoop” where Warren claimed Sanders told her in 2018 a woman could not be elected. Sanders denied saying it – twice. Then Phillip turned to Warren and said “Senator Warren, what did you think when Senator Sanders told you a woman could not win the election?” What self-respecting journalist does that?
A few minutes earlier on the PBS NewsHour, they weren't crying sexism. Mark Shields said she bumbled by endorsing "Medicare For All," and David Brooks said she didn't connect with lower-education voters:
DAVID BROOKS: I think the demographics are clear. She didn't have a huge gender gap. She had a huge education gap. And the people who support her were college-educated people who saw this very smart person with a lot of plans who taught at Harvard Law School. And she never — she wasn't — she grew up in Arkansas — or in Oklahoma. And that side of her didn't get out. Genuinely, when you meet her, she does seem like a very smart Harvard law professor. And a lot of people just didn't relate.
And nobody in the liberal media wanted to discuss the "Pocahontas" issue at play, Warren lying about being Native American to advance in academe, and what Trump would do with that.
