In a profile of White House Correspondents Dinner host Larry Wilmore, CNN’s At This Hour co-host John Berman openly admitted (unlike CBS This Morning) on Thursday to Wilmore’s agreement that The Nightly Show is “admittedly liberal” and “trends left” toward “more pro-Democratic policies and politicians.”
Berman offered nothing but fawning praise for Wilmore in seeing no issue with the show being overwhelmingly liberal, its host serving as a huge Obama supporter, and hailed by The New York Times as “less preoccupied with humor than anyone else who’s ever occupied a mock news chair.”
Naturally, he failed to add the fact that, as of February, Comedy Central’s ratings in the 11:30 p.m. timeslot have fallen 55 percent since Stephen Colbert left for CBS and Wilmore took his place.
Touting Wilmore’s desire for an “explosion” of laughs at “[t]he last such dinner for the first black president starring an African-American comic,” Berman brought up Wilmore’s devout support for Obama simply because of his race to which Wilmore gushed that Obama has “been excellent” in promoting his blackness.
“I think he’s been excellent on it. I think he’s actually increased the policy of blackness over the past year and a half, I would. He has released the blacken,” he added.
The CNN personality stated his approval with Wilmore by chalking his feelings about the President to “[a] classic answer from the 54-year-old comic deliberately funny and deadly serious” on issues like police incidents and Black Lives Matter.
After showing clips of Wilmore talking about the alleged murder of the late Walter Scott in South Carolina at the hands of a white police officer, Berman noted when Wilmore’s not serious, “[h]e applies that same sometimes frank, sometimes funny take to his views about the election which are admittedly liberal.”
When confronted on whether he agreed that his show “trends left” towards “more pro-Democratic policies and politicians,” the Comedy Central host agreed: “I would say probably especially with the issues that we tend to take on because a lot of them are culture issues and that kind of thing.”
Also coinciding with Wilmore’s upcoming appearance at the D.C. elitist confab, the MRC’s Geoffrey Dickens compiled a handful of Wilmore’s most vile outbursts against conservatives, ranging from Ted Cruz having mental problems as a “self-hating dildo” to cheering the indictment of pro-lifers in the Planned Parenthood video scandal.
The relevant portions of the transcript from CNN’s At This Hour on April 28 can be found below.
CNN’s At This Hour with Berman and Bolduan
April 28, 2016
11:52 a.m. Eastern
JOHN BERMAN: I did, however, sit down with one of the most important players of the evening, Larry Wilmore, host of The Nightly Show, will be the host of the big event and he confessed to me to being nervous.
(....)
BERMAN: But when it comes to the White House Correspondents Dinner, the explosion is worth the risk.
LARRY WILMORE WILMORE: Something that I really wanted to do and if I did it, I really did want to do it for this President and I thought the time might have expired for that, so to sneak in there at the end was very cool.
WILMORE: What's happening everybody?
BERMAN: The last such dinner for the first black president starring an African-American comic.
WILMORE: Let's be clear about what black face actually is.
BERMAN: He knows it is historic. [TO WILMORE] You say you like the President. You say, though, you didn't support him because of his policies.
WILMORE: Correct.
BERMAN: You supported because he was black.
WILMORE: Because of the policy that he is black.
BERMAN: How has he delivered on that?
WILMORE: I think he’s been excellent on it. I think he’s actually increased the policy of blackness over the past year and a half, I would. He has released the blacken.
BERMAN: A classic answer from the 54-year-old comic deliberately funny and deadly serious.
(....)
BERMAN: 15 months after taking over the time slot on Comedy Central vacated by Stephen Colbert, The New York Times says Wilmore is less preoccupied with humor than anyone else who’s ever occupied a mock news chair.
(....)
BERMAN: He applies that same sometimes frank, sometimes funny take to his views about the election which are admittedly liberal. [TO WILMORE] Would you say your trends trends left, trends more pro-Democratic policies and politicians?
WILMORE: I would say probably especially with the issues that we tend to take on because a lot of them are culture issues and that kind of thing.
