CNN CEO Chris Licht has supposedly been trying to take the network back to being more of what it used to be — a news organization — before it became a Democratic mouthpiece under former CEO Jeff Zucker.
However, while he’s dumped some of the biased and/or incompetent people, he still has some left. Those folks — including Don Lemon — royally screwed up the New Year’s Eve countdown from New Orleans. Lemon was dancing and throwing beads to the audience as the clock struck midnight and they completely missed midnight and the countdown. It wasn’t just Lemon, it was the producer or whoever was running the show who dropped the ball.
But that wasn’t the only failure that they had over the weekend. Host Dana Bash interviewed Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-IL) on CNN’s “State of the Union” as he approached his final day in Congress. Not only did she give Kinzinger a platform to spew at Republicans and talk about what a gallant fellow he was, but she also told one huge whopper about the reason he was leaving Congress.
“They [the events of Jan. 6] also changed the careers of two House Republicans who chose to serve on the January 6 Committee,” Bash intoned. “And largely as a result of that patriotic service, they both are now leaving Congress.”
Wait, what? Back that one up a bit.
Because of what? As our friends over at Townhall said this is “the lie that just won’t die.” Kinzinger isn’t leaving because of his patriotic service on the Jan. 6 Committee, he’s leaving because the Democrats redistricted his district and he decided not to run again. Nothing at all to do with the Jan. 6 Committee, let alone that claim about his “patriotic service.”
But Bash didn’t say a thing about that, suggesting that somehow he sacrificed his career because of his work on the Committee. Talk about misinformation. Kinzinger fed into that false perception, saying “obviously, there’s been some sacrifice and everything in it.” He continued with the shameless self-promotion, claiming that he was “like the one person that can do the right thing in a crowd” and that he felt honored to “have done the right thing.” Bash even commiserated with him getting emotional, “This is tough for you.”
What was extra funny was he was upset that people might not pay attention to what he had to say, because he wanted “to still be able to have an opinion,” that it was going to be “tough” to be “adjusting to the fact that people will have less interest in what you have to say.” Get used to it, Adam. Your time is done and you’re about to be relegated back to the cheap seats, likely as a CNN or MSNBC commentator to continue to bash Republicans.
Now we could also make an argument that Rep. Liz Cheney’s constituents tossed her out for ignoring them and being concerned with her political agenda, more than anything else. They certainly didn’t reject her because they thought she gave “patriotic service.” But we wouldn’t belabor that point regarding her, since at least she did run. But her constituents did reject her by almost 40 points. Maybe Bash should ask why they so completely rejected her.
But for sure, it’s just straight-up fake news when it comes to Kinzinger. So if Chris Licht is hoping to move away from that label for his network, maybe he needs to look at things like this and hold his people like Bash accountable for such falsehoods.
Fortunately, given CNN’s ratings, I don’t expect that too many people saw Bash’s lie.