Cry me a river, CNN. And spare the rest of America your faux outrage. On Thursday afternoon’s CNN Newsroom, host Brooke Baldwin offered a heaping of liberal hypocrisy by feigning outrage and disgust at Senator John Kennedy (R-LA) calling House Speaker Nancy Pelosi “dumb” at a Wednesday night Trump rally.
Rather incensed, Baldwin lectured him about how he doesn’t “have to agree with Speaker Pelosi but you should respect her.” She also expressed sanctimonious outrage about what such behavior is doing to our future generations.
“We’ve come to expect intense partisanship at Trump rallies, but last night in Louisiana, that partisanship took a nasty, personal turn and the person spouting the insults was not the President. It was Louisiana Senator John Kennedy,” Baldwin began, leading into a clip of Kennedy quipping that Pelosi was “dumb” to be pushing the impeachment inquiry.
As Baldwin usually does when she’s repulsed, she silently glares at the camera for a few seconds before continuing with an assist from Matt Lewis (who still claims to be a conservative but is a kindred spirt with the Bulwark and Rick Wilson wings of the right) (click “expand”):
BALDWIN: It’s not just what he said, listen to the cheers. See that young boy in between the two of them standing behind them? I think we all know we’re really living in partisan times but this is a sitting U.S. Senator disrespecting the Speaker of the House, the person who is third in line to the presidency and most powerful woman in our government. Mr. Senator, you don't have to agree with Speaker Pelosi but you should respect her. Matt Lewis, senior columnist for The Daily Beast and CNN political commentator and Matt, you were as angry as I was. Tell me why.
LEWIS: Well, not only the, you know, is this a Senator disrespecting the Speaker of the House, this is a grown man disrespecting a lady in public and being cheered for it. So, I think it speaks to civility and it’s — this is very common. We saw the other day Rand Paul at a rally, very similar playing to Donald Trump standing beside him, playing to this Trumpian crowd, calling for the media to unmask the whistle-blower and here you have a U.S. Senator, you know, not to be disrespectful, of course, but calling Nancy Pelosi dumb, and he was really just — it was a caricature of a demagogic, populist politician. It was like Huey Long.
Baldwin continued her ‘but think of the children’-routine by wondering what the young man in the audience behind Kennedy and Trump was thinking, claiming that Republicans (as opposed to antifa, the press, or any negative force out there) are “raising a generation of bullies, given the signal that it's okay to talk like this to a woman or man.”
Not surprisingly, Lewis agreed in saying nothing about the leftist rhetoric and violence but instead pinning what ails our discourse on the side of the aisle he claims to be a part of. In addition, he decried “the madness of crowds” at Trump rallies and “a mob mentality” attendees possess.
“Donald Trump breaks everything that we would teach our children of how to behave. Never mind as devout religious Christian, whatever your religion is, people, just as decent human beings, Donald Trump goes against almost every single thing and I think this is a microcosm of that,” Lewis added, neglecting the fact that the current American left stands to punish and work to destroy the Church.
Of course, Baldwin has one set of expectations for those on the right, but wholeheartedly supports insults and truly ugly rhetoric being hurled at President Trump and Republicans.
A NewsBusters review of our records dating back to January 2017 (when Trump took office) found a slew of instances in which Baldwin either uttered or tolerated from guests ugly statements.
Well, there were those times in August 2018 when CNN contributor Michael D’Antonio told Baldwin that Vice President Mike Pence was a “Christian supremacist” or December 2017 when Baldwin eagerly ate up CNN presidential historian Douglas Brinkley describing Pence as “sniveling” and “kissing” Trump’s “belly” as if the President were Buddha.
Going back to 2018, Baldwin laughed as Ana Navarro bashed Ron DeSantis ahead of Election Day as Trump’s “parasitic twin” and, two months later, she shrugged off the threats to the lives of the Covington students.
Baldwin and assorted guests also had plenty of harsh words for the President. In March, Jim Acosta told her that the President is spreading a “virus” against the Press and in January, Baldwin herself called Trump “childish” while Gloria Borger described him as “cranky.”
For good measure, here’s a few others (click “expand”):
- September 25, 2018: WHAT?! CNN, MSNBC Compare Brett Kavanaugh to....Convicted Sexual Predator Bill Cosby
- August 28, 2018: CNN Worships ‘Working Mom’ Stormy Daniels in ‘Vogue’ Being Trump’s ‘Perfect Adversary’
- February 6, 2018: CNN’s Karem Melts Down, Claims Trump Believes ‘Every Immigrant in this Country’ Is ‘A Killer’
- June 24, 2017: On CNN, Montel Williams: GOP Would Send 140 Million to 'Death' With Health Plan
- February 21, 2017: CNN Allows Left-Wing Guest to Accuse Trump of Creating 'Cancer of Anti-Semitism’
Got to love our American political news media. They lecture the American public and those outside the D.C. and New York bubbles about what’s right versus wrong while subjecting themselves to no real, meaningful ethics or rules unless, of course, that involves trying to burn Fox News at the stake.
Speaking of which, someone should ask Amy Robach how a life of following journalistic ethics is working out for her.
To see the relevant transcript from November 7's CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin, click “expand.”
CNN Newsroom with Brooke Baldwin
November 7, 2019
3:16 p.m. Eastern[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Presidency in Peril; GOP’s Kennedy Insults Pelosi: “Must Suck to Be That Dumb”]
BROOKE BALDWIN: We’ve come to expect intense partisanship at Trump rallies, but last night in Louisiana, that partisanship took a nasty, personal turn and the person spouting the insults was not the President. It was Louisiana Senator John Kennedy.
SENATOR JOHN KENNEDY (R-LA): And you know what our Democratic friends have done for him? Speaker Nancy Pelosi is trying to impeach him. I don't mean any disrespect, but it must suck to be that dumb!
BALDWIN: It’s not just what he said, listen to the cheers. See that young boy in between the two of them standing behind them? I think we all know we’re really living in partisan times but this is a sitting U.S. Senator disrespecting the Speaker of the House, the person who is third in line to the presidency and most powerful woman in our government. Mr. Senator, you don't have to agree with Speaker Pelosi but you should respect her. Matt Lewis, senior columnist for The Daily Beast and CNN political commentator and Matt, you were as angry as I was. Tell me why.
MATT LEWIS: Well, not only the, you know, is this a Senator disrespecting the Speaker of the House, this is a grown man disrespecting a lady in public and being cheered for it. So, I think it speaks to civility and it’s — this is very common. We saw the other day Rand Paul at a rally, very similar playing to Donald Trump standing beside him, playing to this Trumpian crowd, calling for the media to unmask the whistle-blower and here you have a U.S. Senator, you know, not to be disrespectful, of course, but calling Nancy Pelosi dumb, and he was really just — it was a caricature of a demagogic, populist politician. It was like Huey Long. The whole reason I never — someone who's a conservative, center-right journalist, you know, sort of being a caricature of a Huey Long populist is not exactly what I signed up for in political parties.
BALDWIN: I just — I — to your point, grown man, and, but I also am not just looking at him and I’m not just looking at the President standing next to him but looking at the crowd behind him and I’m listening to how the crowd, you know, responds and cheers and I see this young man, you know, that you can see standing behind them who, I don’t know, could be, in a — a teenager. Right there, in one of the white hates, I mean, standing between the two of them, right there. I'm almost like out of — it's like behavior and language raising a generation of bullies, given the signal that it's okay to talk like this —
LEWIS: Yeah.
BALDWIN: — to a woman or man.
LEWIS: Well, first of all, it's the madness of crowds. There's a crowd psychology where people in these mass movements get swept up and say and do things, they lose their anonymity, they say or do things they wouldn't normally say or do. It’s a mob mentality there set. The other thing I'll say about this was I was sitting in my Sunday school class at church this past Sunday and the Sunday school class is about parenting, specifically how to parent. And all of the advice we were hearing about, you know, making sure that our children are prepared for the real world and that they know there are consequences to the things that they do. Donald Trump breaks everything that we would teach our children of how to behave. Never mind as devout religious Christian, whatever your religion is, people, just as decent human beings, Donald Trump goes against almost every single thing and I think this is a microcosm of that.
BALDWIN: Well, good on you, Matt Lewis, for spending your Sunday doing that. Good for you.
LEWIS: Sunday morning.
BALDWIN: Sunday morning.
LEWIS: Football comes — football’s important too.
BALDWIN: I got you. I got you.
