When CNN invited former Gov. John Sununu (R-N.H.) to come on and share his memories of his friend, Sen. John McCain, who died last Saturday, the network almost certainly had an ulterior motive: to get the governor’s take on President Donald Trump’s refusal once again to “vibrate to Washington’s rhythms,” to borrow a metaphor from J.E. Dyer’s excellent piece on Trump’s iconoclasm and the endless case of heartburn it has given the Left.
The particular breach of protocol Sununu had been summoned to react to was Trump’s refusal, according to the Washington Post and subsequently CNN itself, to read a “fulsome statement” White House aides had drafted on the life and death of McCain.
Host Alisyn Camerota broached the subject at the 3:56 mark in the video that follows but was ill-prepared for the governor’s response.
Will this presidential election be the most important in American history?
https://youtu.be/fsIUThw0fuc
The expression on Camerota’s face at 4:19 is priceless. Sununu, a lifelong statement, has just called out her network and the Washington Post for the gossip mongers and journalistic frauds they have become, and she scarcely knows how to react. After a pause of several seconds, she scolds Sununu for “denigrating” CNN’s reporting, adding, “You know we have excellent reporters.”
She tries to steer the conversation back to Trump’s effrontery, but Sununu is having none. “Look, Alisyn,” he says at length, “you asked me to come on to talk about John McCain; I’m here to talk about John McCain.”
What makes the entire enterprise a travesty is that Trump did release a brief statement on McCain the same morning the show was taped. The statement was carried by her own network, CNN.
As for Camerota’s claim that CNN has “excellent reporters,” maybe the higher-ups at the network should dispatch one of them to correct or retract their July 27 Trump Tower story, which they still haven’t done a day after Lanny Davis admitted that he was CNN’s “anonymous source.”
(h/t Trumpulist)