CNN hosts told they're "complicit" in Trump re-election in live interview

Published July 1st.

Presidential historian Allan Lichtman took aim at CNN's News Central hosts Monday morning for being "complicit" in Donald Trump's political rise amid the presumptive Republican nominee's bid for a second term.
Lichtman, appearing with hosts John Berman and Sara Sidner, shifted gears during his comments about recent polls between Trump and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.
He believes Trump's remarks during last week's debate should have grabbed more headlines than Biden's much-discussed struggles.
"I love you guys in the media, but I have to say, you are complicit in Donald Trump lying and conning his way to the presidency. All of the attention has been on Biden's faltering debate, but Donald Trump's debate was vastly worse," Lichtman said. "It was based entirely on lies. More than 30 significant lies.
"He threatened our democracy by saying he wouldn't accept the results of a fair election. That he would seek retribution. Why wasn't that the headlines? Why wasn't that the greatest concern from the debate, rather than all of the focus on Joe Biden."
In his rebuke of the media's coverage of Trump, he continued:
"There's an old saying, it's not just the evil people who wreak havoc on the world, it's the good people who don't do enough to stop them. And the media right now is complicit in Donald Trump gaslighting his way to the presidency and threatening our democracy," Lichtman added.

I feel so fucking vindicated right now that a presidential historian is saying the same exact thing I've been saying. Trump's "performance" was horrifying and nobody said a word. Its infuriating.
- You must only care about the horse race aspect of the election then.
  There are people who don't see "beat the other guy no matter what" as the aim of our great political project.
  The aim of our great political project is "Lets work together to create a world worth living in, a world of broadly shared prosperity, a world with the infrastructure that is the envy of the world, a world where housing is a human right, and so are healthcare (including in the rural areas), retirement, food, education and transportation. Let's work together to explore space and to discover new science. A world that's unpolluted. A world where being poor is not a slow motion death sentence. A world where everyone is in a position to build some savings instead of living paycheck to paycheck. A world of internet connectivity as a human right, including in the most rural area. A world of net neutrality. A world of limited copyrights and limited patents. A world void of monopolies as a matter of principle. A world of personal bodily autonomy. A world where privacy is protected for most people but where the superrich have transparency requirements because they can greatly affect our wellbeing with a stroke of a pen. A world with a wealth ceiling and no billionaires."
The man has continuously been given visibility and a platform for the past 4 years to whine and carry on about a stolen election that wasn't and the failings of America that aren't. Ask yourself, was the same thing done for Obama? Bush? Clinton? Bush Sr.? Certainly not... What about Romney? Perot? McCain? Hillary? Gore? Dole? Why not?
Why is this fellonious, mutant Cheeto still being given a voice and opportunity to continue to influence American history? Whether it's for ratings or for some ulterior agenda, we'll probably never know. Shame on all of them, either way. I'm sure it all comes down to money, but whatever it is, it's disgusting...
- It's rampant capitalism manifesting - that's what led to focusing on a conman's rise to candidacy with no credibility to his name. That's how I see it.

They treated Trump as a real candidate back in 2016, artifically elevating him, all because Hillary thought it was an easy win.. CNN is absolutely complacent

Complicit. But complacently so.
They chase ratings, not the bidding of political campaigns. They also reported on all of Hillary's legal problems often ignoring the FBI decided not to prosecute her after millions in tax prayer money investigating her. And as many have pointed out, the FBI doesn't want to let people go free after it spends years and millions of dollars investigating them.

CNN: "Biden's too old! He's unfit to be president."

"What about the convicted felon and rapist? Isn't he unfit?"

CNN: * crickets *

It's a sad state of affairs when we're deciding who to vote for based on who's less unfit for the job rather than who is more qualified.
- That's more or less how democracy works.
But rapist make news go BRRRRRRRRTTTTTT! -CNN
- CNN has been drifting right for a while now, and with this debate it feels like they started to no longer pretend their bias.
  Trump driving the world off a cliff brought alot of clicks and revenue for new agencies. Boring Biden doing the job like an adult cut into their money.
Just going to ask... Did you only recently start paying attention to the political news? Because since even before January 6th and CNN has certainly covered Trump in detail... His indictment, his convictions, the Jan 6 hearings, etc. Where have you been? Media tends to cover Trump so much in fact that people were yelling at them for the opposite problem: "Don't give him so much attention!!"
It's universally saturated that anyone with a modicum of sense knows Trump is a convicted felon, rapist, and unfit for office. I say again: NO. SHIT. While I completely sympathize with that frustration and that Biden despite his age issues is still clearly preferable, there exists several problems with this rampant whataboutism:
The electorate, especially the battleground state undecided voters are simply not that informed and subject to go with whichever media stream of information takes them. Right now they are
It just so happens that the right-wing propaganda machine has a stranglehold on this country, almost always controlling the narrative and thus feeding this both sides rhetoric to aforementioned swing-voters.
When you can't change the electorate, sometimes you must change yourself and play to the electorate you have. We can call for Hitler to step down all we want, but of course, Hitler won't step down. What we do expect is the person holding the moral high ground to do the right thing, however, to give us a better shot.
This entire debate about whether Biden stays or goes is contingent solely on (a) energizing the Democratic grassroots coalition — who is not very energized right now, compared to say Obama or Sanders, and (b) appealing to the concerns of the battleground swing-voters, for whom Biden's age is a deal-breaker.
- This is one specific event with one specific scope. Both candidates performed poorly at that event. Only one of them has been in headline after headline. Yes, we all know Trump lies, but not covering his debate lies at least as much as covering Biden's poor showing at the debate. Lies I remind you. One candidate participated in earnest if poorly. The other lied roughly once per speaking minute. As a candidate for President. That should be nonstop news, at least as much so as "Oh yeah, turns out Biden is old, too!"

Biden is boring and poor for ratings. Biden has dementia!? That's ratings!

Trump: (Ratings intensify)

Literally every day from 2016 to 2020 there was a new scandal. Some new horrible thing he said. It was never ending. Then there was January 6th and it was finally quiet. Quiet for nearly two years....

RNC: if you announce your candidacy, we won't pay your legal bills.

DOJ: About those classified documents.....

Trump: I'm running for president!

RNC: ...

Trump: RNC needs new leadership, here's my daughter in law. Also all funding goes to me first.

RNC: Trump is your God Emperor!

...

Supreme Court: Trump is your God Emperor!

Project 2024: Trump is your God Emperor!

Project 2024: Submit and there won't be bloodshed!

CNN: Yes!!!

MSNBC: Yes!!!

Yup. This is that "liberal news media" that conservatives keep yammering on about. The one that's owned by six corporations.

If I have to see this false prophet Lichtman's bowl cut one more time, I swear to god... Here are just a few facts about this asshole:

It's really not some miracle that he got these elections right, considering he waits until last-minute to predict them.
He gave a full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton... only to predict she'd lose later on in the race.
He hasn't given his fucking prediction for THIS cycle yet.
Even based on his own "keys," he is not remaining impartial because he has no idea whether an alternative candidate would get all the keys just the same.
He inflates incumbency despite Biden's 37% approval-rating and losing pre and post-first debate in polls... Which if you look at historical trends, that NEVER bodes well for the incumbent.

By the way I emailed this shithead challenging his methodology (and I remained much more neutral than this) to no response. In fact I wouldn't be the least-bit surprised if the only reason he wants Biden to remain the nominee is to ensure he maintains record for election predictions by later predicting his easy defeat.

Nate Silver has a far more predictive, mathematical model than this dumb fuck. He can Lichtma balls. (ok that last one I just had to out of adolescent gallows humor, but he threw the first punch with name-calling those wanting Biden to step down).

We are long past the point where it would have been feasible for Biden to withdraw. We were past that point well before the first debate. It is too late to get somebody else on the ballot in many states, including states that then Dems potentially need, like Nevada.
Anybody still repeating the line that Biden needs to withdraw is either:
Ignorant of how election law works
A bad actor, pushing right wing/Russian talking points.
- Agreed. It's too late to promote some lesser known candidate enough to compete with the frothing rotten cult of personality stench that surrounds the orange rapist.
- You can argue that it's not a good idea for Biden to withdraw. That doesnt make people who think the opposite either Russian operatives or ignorant of election law. It just does not.
- TIL Jon Stewart is either ignorant or a bad actor. Does no one know how to read a poll?
- lol says who? I can name Senators, US House representatives, senior strategists for Obama, even a former DNC Chair who fucking say otherwise. Don't bullshit me.
  You're not just wrong, you may very well be outright lying. Now show me your evidence or walk away.
- A long shot is better than no shot; but I suspect a bad actor pushing Russian talking points such as yourself does know this.
None of that makes him wrong about this.
- Yes, it actually does.
  That's kind of — you know — the point.
  Your response is like literally finger-in-ear, head-in-sand denial.

They do have more conservative donors

I was going to comment again that you can't donate to CNN, because they're publicly traded, but then I found out that billionaires find workarounds.
Here's a CNN article about Jeff Bezos donatimg 100 million directly to two political CNN commenters:
https://edition.cnn.com/2021/07/20/media/van-jones-bezos-100-million/index.html
- The FOX folks bought them, dont even bother with CNN
.

The real issue is that today's Republican party is not based on facts at all, it's based on a collective hallucination, wishful thinking, alternative facts, which Republicans believe instead of actual facts.

The vast majority of the lies Trump spewed during the debate are things that Republicans believe are true. When each side has their own facts, the simple act of fact checking becomes a partisan exercise. And holding their candidate to account equals a partisan witch hunt.

This forces each media outlet to choose a side. If they want any attention at all from the Right, they have to lie like them. Outlets that stick to objective facts will be immediately dismissed by half the electorate. While we'd like to think most outlets worth following will choose actual facts, alternative facts increase your base and may lead to more profits.

While we'd like to think most outlets worth following will choose actual facts, alternative facts increase your base and may lead to more profits.
Capitalism is agnostic on facts. It is profit and wealth accumulation driven.
A lot of people were assuming that no fake product would ever be in demand, and thus profit seeking was at least aligned to reality. Greed is good they said.
Ha!
Truth vs. Truthiness

NYT too.

Every single piece of media and online community that did not laugh at Trump and tell him to shut the hell up and get his ass out of the 2016 election is complicit in him doing ANYTHING.

I blame reddit, big-time, for the massive push of his bullshit because they allowed a certain subreddit that will remain nameless here to TAKE OVER THEIR ENTIRE FREAKING "all" PAGE with obvious lies, slander, and other things that would have gotten banned on any other subreddit and did absolutely nothing until AFTER the election to curb it. But yeah, anyone else that didn't just ignore him completely and ask when a real candidate for the Republicans was going to show up is responsible for his bullshit.

What a clusterfuck.

In my memory I will always have CNN as the 100% cause of Ttump winning. Polls show LANDSLIDE victory for Hillary. Trump doesnt stand a chance! Don't even bother America this is a fucking lock! Might be paraphrasing a bit but that's how I remember the coverage leading up to the election.
This is why people like Assange, Musk, and Spez will always try to appear to be speech freedom fighters but in reality they pick and choose who to allow through. It's really about control.
/r/The_Ronald_McDonald

Trump is exactly three* *(3) years younger than Biden. When he's not spouting nonsense about boat sinking batteries and sharks and thinking Hannibal Lecter is real, he's lying. Bigly.

Why is no one in your media talking about this?

Is anyone surprised? They basically said as much when CNN was acquired by Warner Bros

It's a business,not journalism
I dont think anyone has realized that warner brothers has an extreme right winger on the board calling the shots. Since the acquisition, CNN has gone right. The vision is to remake CNN in the image of Fox. The objective and liberal reporters all quit.

Whatever gets people more money. Sigh. 🫡

Suddenly, beatbox.

I get why Biden is getting criticized because of how senile he is, but by not going Biden they risk another Hillary. They basically would need to find another candidate that does not mobilize the GQP base due to "being a threat" to their fragile snowflake sensibilities. I suppose it could be another throwback, a previous candidate like John Kerry.

IDK, I feel like Biden is exactly another Hillary - he's dramatically unpopular everywhere outside liberal bastions. It doesn't seem like liberals need to worry about mobilizing the red base, they need people to come out and vote FOR them in the key swing states instead of staying home.
- he’s dramatically unpopular everywhere outside liberal bastions.
  I don't know anyone who actually likes him. We're all just glad he's not Trump. And frankly, I'd vote for him in much, much worse shape than he currently is against Trump.
- Any democratic candidate is going to be dramatically unpopular due to the GQP personality cult propaganda machine, which also affects voters on the other aisle more than one might suspect. Biden has several things going out for him: (1) Not a woman, which means less of a reaction from the other side of the undecided aisle (2) He's stuck in the 20th century, like most of them (3) The fact that he's so senile and getting criticized for it is probably starting to get some sympathy from them because they are finding it relatable.
  Hence why John Kerry is viable alternative. He's also a throwback, people who might not have voted for him both no longer like the candidate they voted for, Bush, who condemned the Trump era GQP and paid for it, and would still consider him a sign of times when politics weren't as divisive. He's also as old as Biden but not nearly as senile and a known figure. If the impossible happened and Kerry ran with, say, Mitt Romney, it would cement a candidacy that would show that the elections are no longer about party lines but about trying to stave off an encroaching personality cult fascism, that it is a fight for survival, and even more people would be inclined to vote for them.

My Poli sci professors and half the people I went to college with predicted most of our modern elections too.

This guy is a hack who seeks attention. The media, including CNN has talked about Trump's lies ad nauseam. Literally right after the debate they started fact checking. And they gave Biden personal interview time to patch up his debate performance but he instead used it to show us he is out of touch and considers this either a game or a personal vendetta.

What you guys and this "historian" are actually mad about is that the media won't cover for Biden in the same way Fox and friends cover for Trump.

Yes...Trump was buffoon that lied though his teeth.

Biden still lost that debate in the worst possible ways.

When it comes to that spectacle, it was all lose. Trump couldn't answer most questions and just blah blah blahed lies with little policy and zero plan for anything. Biden did a good job showing why there should have been an actual primary season for the Democrats, but he did at least try to answer and corrected a couple of his gaffs(Biden gaffs aren't new, but man.... Dude is worn)
Everyone lost. This guy is correct, it's mind boggling there wasn't a week of headlines of Trump's attack on democracy
- Biden did not correct Trump. He let Trump get away with murder. That is not CNNs fault.
- The debate just highlighted all the concerns that have been around this campaign from the start. The real nail in the coffin for Biden is the response to his terrible performance. They are sequestered and instead he needs to be out there showing the people that the debate was a one off. The fact that they aren't getting Biden out there basically confirms that he can't do it anymore.
  Anyone that thinks Trump won that debate was almost certainly a trumper to begin with.

You can do it Joe! You got more votes than Obama!

The Democratic Party cannot fail us.

It is only us who can fail the Democratic Party.

Wow. That's either a textbook cult member/apparatchik mindset or an excellent sarcastic jab at that of others. Please be the latter 🤞
The democratic party had consistently failed us, at least since the continuation Reaganism under the Clinton administration, but that's just my lifetime and probably started before then.
- FDR is prolly the only guy that ever cared about American wage slave... Since then it has been down hill for us.
  However, whatever happened since Reagan is straight abusive husband bullshit vibes. Life is untenable for likely over half the country and when people voices their complaints, they get mocked for not understanding "the economy" whole having some number showed in their faces explaining how their wages went up.
The Democratic Party cannot fail us.
It is only us who can fail the Democratic Party.
-- Bernie Sanders?
/s
Well, that certainly is one interpretation.
- Some of y’all really need a /s tag I guess
- They have had a handful of interesting takes this past few days
So literally anything the Democratic party does is acceptable?
Because that's what it sounds like you're saying
- Acceptable to whom?
  Obviously the strategy of voter shaming is acceptable to a lot of people.
  I despise voter shaming. The politicians have to EARN our votes. Always. No exceptions.
  Some folks are trying to flip this dynamic on its head, where the politician will do nice policies but only if we're going to be good little boys and girls, shut up, stop making demands, and just vote for the billionaire-approved functionary.
- It's sarcasm, but we're in a tight spot where the Democratic party can get pretty bad before we should drop them.

BIDEN is fucking complicit if he's so weak that CNN can make a difference

Are we going to pretend the corporate media is trying to help trump?

Right, why would commercial media want to underhandedly support the candidate who generates constant outrage and hate porn, which directly increases their bottom line. Why would they lie
- Yes constant hate porn against trump, I agree.

Anyone telling the truth about Biden being a senile old piece of crap Genocide enabler is actually a Russian agent. Do not believe your eyes and ears. Vote Blue no matter who.

Who said Biden was great?
The vote is between fascism and not fascism. The representatives for those choices is just a sponsored popularity contest.
- Biden failed to push back against Trump during the interview. This is not on CNN.
Trump is a lot less great than that.
Nice strawman you've constructed there but the joke's on you, there isn't a single Democrat who thinks Biden is "great" -- we all just think he's not as much of a piece of absolute human shit that Trump is.
- Good to know that it's the bar for being able to run one of the most powerful countries. "Not as much of a piece of shit as Trump".
  Shouldn't a person need to be"Great" to be elected president?
- Why do you and other Centrists keep saying that as if us on the Left don't know, and as if that will get us to vote for Biden? Everyone knows Trump is the worst. There's literally over 100 million people in the US that would be a better choice than Trump. Why should Biden get the vote out of all of them? "Because he's the nominee" "there's not enough time for a replacement" "some states are dumb and won't change the ballot in time" don't give a fuck. Why should Biden get my vote?
- I’m a democrat. I think Biden is great. He’s done an amazing job, and I think his wins will continue.