Forever cashing in on his Watergate fame and still hailed on TV as a “Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist” (46 years ago), CNN political analyst Carl Bernstein was called in for Tuesday’s CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin to analyze the ouster of National Security Adviser John Bolton and launch his typically hyperbolic analysis that “we don’t have functional governance” in America, thanks to President Trump.
BROOKE BALDWIN: So with me now, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Carl Bernstein; he’s also a CNN political analyst. You know, you’ve been listening to all this analysis. What say you?
CARL BERNSTEIN: First of all, this was never a good fit.
BALDWIN: Okay.
BERNSTEIN: John Bolton is a right-wing neocon ideologue, the last thing Donald Trump is, is a conventional ideologue. But more important, this is the…perhaps the most convincing evidence that we’ve seen of late that we have a governing crisis under this President, a dire crisis in which the national security of the United States is not secure because of the conduct of the President of the United States. He cannot conduct a coherent presidency, a coherent administration. The resignations of Mattis; his book, Mattis’s book, what he says about this President in the book.
This is one more indication of it, and also, we have astonishing thing that appears to be going on that already Bolton has called the President a liar. The thing that…that all of the networks, even on Fox of late have been saying about the President of the United States lying; it now appears that Bolton in his tweet and in his threats to keep going on is…is going to talk some about the President’s lying. But…but more important is this whole question. We don’t have functional governance for the first time in our modern history in this country because of the conduct of this President of the United States.
After Baldwin pointed out the pressing national security issues facing the country right now, Bernstein kept sounding the alarm: “he is handling them in a way that is demonstrably dangerous, instead of again, a systematic conduct of the presidency of policy that relies on fact, that relies on process, that relies on expertise. This is seat of the pants governance that is not working and our allies in particular, as well as our enemies, have picked up on this. And we are now in…we’re destabilized as a result of this President’s weaknesses.”
CNN wasn't about to give up on its seemingly never-ending obsession with “Sharpiegate.” About halfway through the segment, Baldwin brought up Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s alleged threat to fire members of NOAA who contradicted President Trump’s claim that “Hurricane Dorian might in fact impact Alabama.” Bernstein referred to Ross as a “toady” and described “Sharpiegate” as well as Bolton’s firing as proof of President Trump’s “lack of an ability to function as the President of the United States in a way that is open to fact.”
Bernstein also floated a conspiracy theory implying that the Bolton ouster was orchestrated to distract from “Sharpiegate,” arguing that “it may be no accident that the Bolton announcement is coming today to get this off the front pages.” In another attempt to paint President Trump as unfit, Bernstein accused him of "conducts his presidency as if it were a television show called The Apprentice. 'You're fired.'”
As the segment came to a close, Bernstein alleged that “many Republicans...are very worried about the stability of the President of the United States.” Without mentioning any names, Bernstein said that in conversations with reporters, “many (Republicans) are saying we do not believe this President has the stability to exercise and be fit to hold this office.” While Bernstein never explicitly brought up the 25th Amendment, his commentary definitely implies that President Trump’s behavior warrants the use of the 25th Amendment to remove him from office; a scenario that cable news personalities have fantasized about for the past two and a half years.
As a matter of fact, Bernstein himself called for President Trump’s removal from office shortly after the resignation of Defense Secretary James Mattis. It should have become clear by now to Bernstein and the rest of the Trump-hating media that President Trump’s removal from office is not going to happen but they still continue to push for it; no matter how ridiculous they look.
