CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter brought on "Legendary Journalist" Sam Donaldson to unload the usual liberal mantras on Sunday. That's how CNN tagged Sam -- "Legendary Journalist" -- not only on screen, but even in the CNN transcript. Donaldson raised eyebrows much smaller than his by claiming that Trump fans are "fixated" on narrowing the country: "They want to return this country to the white Christian country that they believe it should be again. They don't want the diversity."
DONALDSON: I'm telling you something, if public opinion is strongly for the impeachment and the conviction of President Trump, he will be convicted in the Senate with the Republican help.
STELTER: So, you listen to the Trump rallies, you think there is not representative of all of America. You think it's important for us to see that.
DONALDSON: No, the Trump rallies are Trump's -- his strong supporters. I mean, lock her up, I mean, all the things he says, all the vicious, mean things he says, they love it. There are these people in this country. They're good Americans otherwise. They'll probably give you the shirt off their back, they'll help you if you need, but they have this fixation. They want to return this country to the white Christian country that they believe it should be again. They don't want the diversity, and they follow him for this, but they're not the country. We are a diverse people. We are good and strong because of that, and we're going to come back to that, I assure you.
STELTER: I like the optimism, Sam. Thank you.
Apparently, Stelter likes the feeling that the country will either impeach Trump, or defeat him at the ballot box. In other words, the people will eventually do what CNN wants.
Stelter began the segment by asking what's different this time with impeachment. Donaldson went on a CNN-pleasing rant about how the press is on the side of "facts" and Fox viewers are "willfully ignorant" about those.
STELTER: So, Sam -- Nixon, Clinton, Trump, what's different this time around?
DONALDSON: Well, it's not the same thing in the sense that the press's job is to point out what people say accurately, but if they say things that are not true and the press knows they're not true, not because of our opinions but because we have facts, you present the facts on the other side. And Trump has been called out repeatedly because he repeatedly misstates the facts.
I think that's what we need to do now. And don't be afraid of Fox. Don't be afraid of the people who support President Trump no matter what the facts are. They're either willfully ignorant about them or know about them but they don't care. We can't do anything for them except continue to do the job of the press.
When Nixon resigned, 24 percent of the American public said they still liked him, he was still a great president. There's always been this strain of American life. But they don't represent the country. If Mr. Trump has, what, 30 percent, 31 percent of a strong base, we don't know exactly, but that's not the country. The other 70 percent are out there.
And so, when I go to parties or elsewhere and people say, oh, he's going to be re-elected, I mean, look at those rallies, look at the people, the fervor and all of the things he says, they love it, treasonous Nancy Pelosi and all this -- I say, yes, his base loves it. The base is not the country, and it's not going to run the country.
How likely is it that Sam Donaldson told his liberal friends in 2016 "his base isn't going to win"?
