Even when George Stephanopoulos isn't hosting, ABC's This Week sounds framed against President Trump. His primetime TV speech was trashed, he was called an "angry old man," and it was predicted that he would go down as the "least consequential president of our lifetime."
From the start, host Jonathan Karl set the tone. "It's been an erratic week for Donald Trump. We've seen a defensive prime time address, the renaming of the Kennedy Center to the Trump-Kennedy Center, a partial release of the Epstein files, and military action in both Syria and the Caribbean. All as Congress leaves Washington without addressing rising health care costs."
Then it was over to the prerecorded intro to the show, and Karl kept punching. "With most Americans unhappy with the state of the economy, the President gets combative and deflects blame." Karl then ran a five second clip from Trump's Wednesday night address to the nation, followed by a gratuitous seven seconds from a clip posted by Democrat Senator Mark Warner of Virginia who attacked the speech and Trump personally.
TRUMP: Eleven months ago, I inherited a mess and I'm fixing it.
WARNER: Anybody who saw his speech last night saw an angry old man who has no connection to what Americans are going through.
When the show's intro segment ended, Karl continued with the show's theme. "Good morning. Welcome to This Week. President Trump has gone to Palm Beach for the holidays after a particularly chaotic week at home and abroad. The latest the U.S. Coast Guard yesterday seized another oil tanker off the coast of Venezuela. It's the second such vessel to be taken in the administration's escalating military campaign against Venezuelan leader Nicolas Maduro. Back at home, the President this week sought to elevate his own standing in ways both traditional and highly nontraditional. He made an angry and defensive primetime address, touting his economic record in the face of a flurry of polls showing that most Americans just don't like the way he is handling the economy."
Later in the show, Karl brought on his panel, which did not have one Trump supporter on it. Former DNC Chair Donna Brazile, SCOTUS Blog Editor Sarah Isgur, former Bernie Sanders 2020 campaign manager, now ABC Contributor, Faiz Shakir and former Republican New Jersey Governor Chris Christie. More negative adjectives followed:
KARL: Chris, let me start with you. Even by Trump's standards, this was a erratic and chaotic week. Renaming the Kennedy Center, the stuff he did at the White House, the prime time speech. What's going on?
CHRISTIE: Well, first, it's so good to be here, John. Merry Christmas to you, too, Mr. President. Look, this is a pretty strange week. And just think about it. He sends out that disgraceful post on the murder of Rob Reiner and his wife, Michelle. Then he puts his name on the building named after an assassinated president. Then he gives a frenetic national TV speech filled with inaccuracies and really sounded like he was yelling at the American people that they don't get how great he's done so far.
ABC gets what it paid for from Christie -- a reported $475,000 a year.
When Karl threw it to Isgur, who worked for Trump's Justice Department in the first term, but she had this bizarre response. "Donald Trump is on track to be the least consequential president of our lifetime, because he keeps thinking he can do things like renaming the Kennedy Center, like even the DEI policies that so many people like. Birthright citizenship, these are things that are done by statute." That may indeed be the case, but does she really believe that "so many people" like DEI? Wow!
I'm sure ABC News and Jonathan Karl are so proud that viewers of Sunday's show learned that Donald Trump, our angry old man president, had an erratic, chaotic, and strange week, is on track to be the least consequential president of our lifetime, and recently gave an address to the nation that was both combative and defensive, angry and frenetic. It has to be negative on every count.
