On Tuesday's Early Start, there was one more example of the contempt that journalists have for the NRA as CNN anchor Dave Briggs praised gun control activist Cameron Kasky as "an eloquent young man" after a clip of the liberal student activist pushing for more gun control in which he in part ranted that the NRA is a "terrorist organization" that gives "blood money" to politicians.
Earlier in the show, shortly after 5:00 a.m. ET, he and co-host Christine Romans joined CNN's Brenna Williams in worrying that current legislation in Congress would not go far enough because, as Briggs -- who notably used to be a weekend anchor for FNC's Fox and Friends -- observed, it "really just enforces current law."
After he asked, "Would that at all change attitudes about whether Congress is doing much at all?" Williams dismissed Congress as trying to "look like they're doing something." Williams:
I think that's what they're trying to do -- is to try to look like they're doing something, but, as you said, it really only enforces the law -- it gives monetary incentive to follow the laws that are already in place.
It's not really doing anything to expand background checks or really add anything to existing legislation, so it kind of seems like a typical Congress move putting forward something, but really that's not really dong anything but enforcing what's already there.
At about 5:30 a.m. ET, as the show revisited the issue of the student gun control activists again, Briggs talked up the possibility that they will affect public opinion on gun control as he turned to Romans and posed: "Do you think the students mobilizing in Florida is similar to the Vietnam moment with the college students really turning public opinion?"
The show soon played a clip of Kasky -- which had been shown every half hour on the show since 4:00 a.m. ET -- as the liberal activist railing against the NRA: "Are you for taking steps to save us? Or are you for taking NRA blood money? We are not letting the United States be run by that terrorist organization."
After Kasky went on to complain about being dismissed by politicians as not understanding, Briggs gushed: "That's an eloquent young man there."
