CNN’s absurd Christmas gift to Donald Trump
An analysis of Trump’s pro-vaccine-and-booster interview with Candace Owens published by CNN Editor-at-Large Chris Cillizza today is entitled “The best thing Donald Trump has done in years” asserting that, despite Trump’s “whole lot of harm to America over the last five years … earlier this week, he did something genuinely good.” Cillizza says “Trump could have been a more forceful public advocate for vaccines and boosters much earlier” and that “he bears at least some responsibility” for Republican refusers of the vaccine.”
Enough with the sugar coating! Trump has been a strident COVID and vaccine denier since day-one, complicit in hundreds of thousands of COVID deaths. He bears roughly 99.9% of the responsibility for the vaccine backlash! CNN’s praise is akin to giving a convicted arsonist credit for telling homeowners to buy fire extinguishers.
But CNN has a sad history of overcompensating to “appear unbiased”—from its free, wall-to-wall coverage of every 2016 Trump rally to Van Jones’ naïve assessment in 2017 that Trump “became the President of the United States in that moment” after Trump managed not to bungle a teleprompter speech to Congress.
Donald Trump is a narcissist, an egomaniac, and a sociopath, and he’s committed multiple crimes to obstruct justice and Congress, from the moment he was inaugurated through January 6th, 2020. In fact, Trump’s Brazilian buddy and counterpart, President Jair Bolsonaro, could be facing murder charges for his negligence, incompetence and anti-scientific denialism that led to hundreds of thousands of Brazilian COVID deaths, according to an October draft report from the Brazil Senate. Sound familiar?
Yes, we can be grateful that Trump sent a pro-vaccine message—maybe too little, too late—to MAGAworld. But credit is something he absolutely does not deserve. And the “mainstream media” needs to stop bending over backwards to serve it up.
Nelson Checkoway is an award-winning copywriter and the principal of Rising Tide Direct, a fundraising agency for non-profit organizations.