CNN TANKS FOR TRUMP, REFUSES TO FACT-CHECK HIS LIES
A-Block (1:40) SPECIAL COMMENT: As I reported in our live video version of this podcast on YouTube and Twitch right after the "debate," there were three participants in the CNN event last night, not just two. President Biden was competing against the tag team of Trump and CNN.
I warned here on Wednesday that CNN's abrogation of the primary responsibility of any journalistic effort anywhere and at any time in the history of the world (when the guy urinates on your leg and tells you it's raining, you're supposed to SAY something) had the potential to render the first Biden-Trump "debate" into a repeat of the network's disastrous live Town Hall with Trump last year.
But in that one, and though she failed, Kaitlin Collins at least tried to push back against Trump's firehouse of lies. Last night, Jake Tapper and Dana Bash disgraced themselves and disqualified themselves from any future reportorial credibility (under the guidance of CNN political director David Chalian and new chief Mark Thompson). CNN gave Trump 45 minutes in front of an audience that may have topped 100,000,000 to lie about everything from January 6th to his own golf performance. I documented 40 of the lies. I think I missed two-thirds of them, or more. CNN pushed back against exactly none.
The network had promised to at least not abide Trump's lies about the 2020 election and having set the truth bar as low as it could have gone, failed to reach even that.
It's not just that Bash and Tapper should be fired (and Chalian and Thompson and anybody else in management responsible for this utter, corrupt pandering to Trump). If I had done what they did, I would have resigned and fled the country by now. And probably changed my name.
In a just world, CNN would be forced off the air and out of business, today, and its offices evacuated and the empty buildings leveled. The operation where I began my TV career in 1981 and resumed my news career in 2002 is dead and its credibility is now marked with the NewsMaxes and RSNs of this world.
As to Biden's halting and hoarse performance, he is bloodied but unbowed. More on that in the third segment of this podcast.
B-BLOCK (17:01) MORE SPECIAL COMMENT: We'll review some of the key clips from the Trump Town Ha--- I'm sorry "CNN Presidential Debate" including the remarkable truth that while one of the candidates is seeking the office to avoid prison and will do anything to anybody to win - as he tried to do in 2020 - Tapper and Bash did not even bring up the topic of democracy until the 39th minute of the "debate," and waited even longer to question Trump about his status as the worst criminal in our nation's history.
C-BLOCK (40:28) QUESTIONS FROM YOU: Observations from viewers of the debate and the live podcast and my replies - including the three or four different components to one obvious question: "Is it too late to replace Biden?" There are three answers, the most important of which is: if you do, you trade a still likely victory over evil for certain defeat. No would-be replacement comes within 10 points of Trump in polling. It's that simple.
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