In a clip that had gone viral on Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell humorously declared that he would indeed fill a Supreme Court vacancy if one were to become available during the 2020 election. Pouncing on the “hypocrisy,” CNN host Chris Cuomo angrily proclaimed the elder statesman to be the “poster child” for deceitfulness and “all things wrong with politics.”
Cuomo ended Tuesday’s Prime Time with a diatribe railing against McConnell and President Trump. After declaring “shame” on the Majority Leader, he suggested that McConnell was not “the problem” but “a symptom, like a fever rash, or clammy hands, or gas.”
The opposition campaign began with Cuomo trying the rally viewers to the polls to change “the game” themselves. “You control all of it. What McConnell does, what deals are made, they’re all vote in or out these people and they act in no fear of consequence more than good conscience. You just saw it,” he exclaimed. “Witness McConnell for what he is.”
The show was capped off with Cuomo demanding that the voters in Kentucky rise up and oust McConnell from office:
If you were to look at this and say, “I don't want to see another one of these guys do this again. I hate this.” If you feel like that and you’re in Kentucky, there will never be another Mitch McConnell moment like this if he gets voted out. These people are only as bad as you allow them to be. Elections do have consequences.
Remember your power, people. Remember it. Remember to use it. This will be my clarion call to you during this election. It's all about you. You get what you want in a democracy. That's why Mitch McConnell is able to play the game, because he is kept a player in it.
CNN claims Cuomo is a journalist, but here he very much appeared to be a Democratic campaign spokesperson.
Shortly before getting to that point, Cuomo knocked the intelligence of President Trump’s supporters for not seeing that their candidate was everything that they hated about Washington, D.C. He then seemed to contradict himself by suggesting Trump supporters saw the then-candidate “not as a cure but almost like a virus inserted into the corpus of politics to set about making it sick, as a way, I guess, of hopefully sweating itself out of the fever of favoritism they reject.”
He added: “He is a reflection of what we have let our system become.”
“These people are only as bad as you allow them to be”? How dehumanizing. Now, despite this clear and open call to oust McConnell and Trump at the polls, CNN will continue to falsely claim they are not a political organization.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time
May 28, 2019
9:56:56 p.m. EasternCHRIS CUOMO: First fact in the argument. Senator Majority Leader Mitch McConnell refusing to put up Merrick Garland for a SCOTUS vacancy.
SEN. MITCH MCCONNELL: All we're doing, Chris, is following a longstanding tradition of not filling vacancies on the Supreme Court in the middle of a presidential election year.
CUOMO: Would he do the same thing if the president were in his party? Next fact, he said this today.
UNIDENTIFIED MAN: If a supreme court justice was to die next year, what would you do?
MCCONNELL: We’d fill it.
[Laughter]
CUOMO: Oh, the hypocrisy. Shame on McConnell, poster child for perfidy, all things wrong with politics. Except he isn't the problem, is he? He's a symptom, like a fever rash, or clammy hands, or gas.
I now argue the reality, the root cause. Elections have consequences. Cue eye roll. Don't hear it in a judge take your punishment kind of way. I don’t mean it like that. You control all of it. What McConnell does, what deals are made, they’re all vote in or out these people and they act in no fear of consequence more than good conscience. You just saw it.
Witness McConnell for what he is. Witness the odd evolution of Senator Graham for what it is.
See, too many put too much emphasis on the players and not the reality of who controls the game. We all hear it and most say it. Votes, they're marginalized, they don't really count, it's all about the money, the elites, the insiders, the media, the whatever. And then you get Trump.
While one could reasonably argue that this President is an example of what much of his supporters say they are against, none of those influences was not enough to prevail over people at the polls in the places that mattered.
That's why I argue it is a dangerous mistake to see this President as the root of your troubles. He is a reflection of what we have let our system become. And in an odd twist, people saw things they wanted to change, things they hate. And they saw this President not as a cure but almost like a virus inserted into the corpus of politics to set about making it sick, as a way, I guess, of hopefully sweating itself out of the fever of favoritism they reject.
You’re right to attack the players, of course. Decency is dead, compromise is seen as capitulation, a word that draws on the idea of losing your head because of what you are doing. Sad. True. But they don’t control the game. Not really.
If you were to look at this and say, “I don't want to see another one of these guys do this again. I hate this.” If you feel like that and you’re in Kentucky, there will never be another Mitch McConnell moment like this if he gets voted out. These people are only as bad as you allow them to be. Elections do have consequences.
Remember your power, people. Remember it. Remember to use it. This will be my clarion call to you during this election. It's all about you. You get what you want in a democracy. That's why Mitch McConnell is able to play the game, because he is kept a player in it.
