CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter is the poster anchor for the Heads I Win, Tails You Lose game on the White House briefings. It’s a scandal when they don’t have any, and it’s a scandal when they do. But CNN’s Don Lemon can really argue both sides of the Trump-bashing argument, as a couple of clips will demonstrate. He flipped. And then he flopped. And it's an evil plot either way.
At the open of his show CNN Tonight on March 30, a sour Lemon decried the briefings, toeing the typical liberal line that they’re too full of lies to be aired live.Then he claimed this wasn't a political statement!
DON LEMON: I have said I don't think you should really listen to what he says, you should listen to what the experts say. I'm not actually sure, if you want to be honest, that we should carry that live. I think we should run snippets. I think we should do it afterwards and get the pertinent points to the American people. Because he's never, ever going to tell you the truth.
And guess what he's going to do? If you ask a question that is a legitimate question, he -- and if he doesn't like the question he's going to say whether it's -- whether you're being mean or not or whatever he wants to call it, he is going to say that is a mean, nasty question. Why?
Because he wants his base to think that the media's being mean to him and they're attacking him. It is all a plot. It is all orchestrated, and if you can't see it, I don't know -- I don't know what you're looking at.
So, you know, I -- it's obvious, it's transparent to me. This has become -- those press briefings have become his new Apprentice. They've become his new rallies, and he treats the press and the media as if he's talking to the people in his rallies. It's the same thing. It's no different. It's just that the audience is not there.
Now fast-forward a month to April 29. When it looked like the White House was going to suspend daily coronavirus briefings temporarily – but it was just over the weekend – Lemon saw another nefarious plot.
LEMON: Let me just say something before I move on with what I have planned here. I've seen so many people out and about lately not socially distancing, not wearing masks, not following the rules. This is not over. You may think it's over because if you -- if you actually pay attention to what's happening in Washington with this administration, not having the briefings, trying to -- pretending that this is over. Because they want to move on to other things.
So not having those briefings, that's all part of the plan for you to think that this is over. That we have moved beyond this. People are still dying at alarming rates. Those quarantine orders that are given, they're still in place. There are still orders in most places.
So, don't get it twisted. Don't sit there and think that this is over because you've just -- you've been in the house for a long time. That's not so.
Shouldn't Lemon have to make up his mind? Apparently, at CNN, the only thing that matters is proclaiming that everything President Trump does is stupid and suspicious.
