“That was right out of a dictator’s playbook, you know,” Joy Behar said on the View earlier today. She was referring to President Trump’s drive around Walter Reed hospital the other day where his supporters had been camped outside. She added, “Parade the dictator around so that the world and the country can see that he’s still alive and he’s still robust.” The other co-hosts didn’t repeat that but also didn’t choose to disagree with it. Here’s the clip:
Maybe CNN’s Brian Stelter watches the view because he seemed to echoing Behar’s take when it came to Trump flight on Marine One back to the White House. Stelter told Wolf Blitzer: “It’s not a real show of strength but it’s a performative show of strength. This is what strong men do in autocratic regimes.” He added, “Of course, thankfully, we are in a democracy, but this is the kind of thing you see from strongmen who want to appear to be leading. It’s a dear leader sort of approach. And I think that is what we are seeing on our television screens.” Here’s the clip:
Proof that CNN isn't taking the news that the President will beat the coronavirus well. This is just vile rhetoric from Brian Stelter. CNN won't condemn this because they agree with it pic.twitter.com/QPwgssRUfN
— Curtis Houck (@CurtisHouck) October 5, 2020
Stelter went on to call it a “power trip” and said Trump was “showing off the tools at his disposal.”
Trump's flight from Walter Reed to the White House is a literal POWER TRIP – the visuals do not match reality – but the visuals remind me of Trump's use of the South Lawn for his RNC acceptance speech pic.twitter.com/i8N0T8FOVl
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) October 5, 2020
Stelter also retweeted fellow CNN reporter Jim Acosta referring to Trump as the “Coronavirus in Chief.”
Coronavirus in Chief, Trump takes off mask as he returns to WH. pic.twitter.com/ukCyhU1Nv0
— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) October 5, 2020
It really should be embarrassing to Stelter that as the media reporter at one of the major news networks he’s rehashing talking points warmed up for him by Joy Behar, a progressive voice so unhinged that she has been forced to apologize on air in the past for comments about Vice President Mike Pence. I wonder what CNN is paying Stelter for analysis like this?
So let me engage in a little bit of Stelter-like analysis myself. Stelter’s career (and Acosta’s) at this point rests on explicitly partisan grounds. He just wrote a book making the case (not very convincingly) that Fox News is a threat to the Republic. His entire theory of why that’s so rests on Trump’s fondness for the network. So much so that he’s literally using Trump to sell books. This is his pinned tweet as I write this:
Trump just explained why you should https://t.co/LOvdESAY6L:
"I watched Lou Dobbs last night, Sean Hannity last night, Tucker last night, Laura, I watched 'Fox & Friends' in the morning…" pic.twitter.com/Jfwvs4GaKU
— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) September 10, 2020
When your career and your book sales are dependent on being a resistance hero, you deliver what your audience wants. And if that happens to sound a lot like Joy Behar, that’s okay. After all, Behar has done pretty well for herself in the Trump era hasn’t she? There’s a big market for this kind of resistance journalism and Stelter appears happy to fill orders.
