“Get a load of this pompous jerk. He ain’t even embarrassed.”
Swamp Rabbit was reacting to video of Anderson Cooper mouthing off about CNN’s May 10 town hall with Donald Trump, an event that served as a free ad for the ex-president and damaged what little is left of the network’s credibility. Cooper, a prime-time talking head, should have issued a mea culpa, but instead he defended CNN and scolded viewers who have criticized the network for helping to legitimize Trump’s current campaign for the presidency:
You have every right to be outraged today and angry and never watch this network again. But do you think staying in your silo and only listening to people you agree with is going to make that person go away?
Cooper was being disingenuous, or just stupid. Everyone knew in advance that Trump, if given the opportunity, would use this free hour of network TV time to continue lying about the 2020 election results, abortion rights groups, immigration policy, his recent sexual abuse and defamation trial, and any other issues that came up. And that the event’s so-called moderator, CNN’s Kaitlan Collins, would have little or no chance to refute Trump’s lies in a live setting, in front of an audience of Trump supporters.
“Cooper’s the one who’s in the silo,” Swamp Rabbit said. “He gets paid millions to be a mouthpiece for rich right-wingers who want to steal Fox News’s audience. He gets to pretend he’s a great guy for defending his boss’s bad decisions. Nice work if you can get it.”
“You got that right,” I replied, referring him to a recent piece by Robert Reich, who mapped the money trail that leads from Cooper to Chris Licht, the right-wing CEO at CNN; to David Zaslav, Licht’s boss at Warner Bros. Discovery; to John Malone, the right-wing multibillionaire and leading shareholder at Warner Brothers Discovery who helped make possible the merger of CNN and Discovery.
“Stop, you’re giving me a headache,” Swamp Rabbit said after skimming the article.
“The whole country has a headache,” I told him, “and yes men like Anderson Cooper are helping their masters make sure the headache is permanent.”
Odd Man Out 
I wasn’t that scared or worried about that whole bruhaha until I read what you wrote about Reich’s discovery. Are all of the richest assholes in the country- and in much of the world- right wingers? Because if they are, we could be in for a whirlwind. I just hope we don’t get another criminocracy?? thugracy? kakistocracy?
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Not all of the super-rich are right-wingers, but the ones who support would-be dictators certainly are… Reich’s column is instructive not because his information is news but rather because it shows that the info was already out there for the mainstream media to explore, if they cared. For ex., Washington Post and other big news organizations have reported on moves Licht made to make CNN more right-wing (their talking heads can no longer use the phrase “big lie” when referring to Trump’s bogus election claims, and so on) but the Post and the other biggies always stop short of reporting the extent to which their survival depends on the approval — on the whims, really — of their super-rich overseers. The Post is owned by Jeff Bezos, the richest man in the world, but the people who run that newspaper like to pretend his ownership has no bearing on what they report, and how they report it.
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Trump looked and acted like a crime boss. Old and tired. I’m not opposed to him being on TV, but I think the host has an obligation to demand answers to questions regarding his crimes. I don’t know of anyone who can stand up to him. Kaitlan Collins tried and failed. Chris Christie says he can do it, but I’m unconvinced. The right host could reveal Trump for what he is. It could be an on-the-air dramatic reversal in American politics. An MGM moment. I could write that scene, but I could never live it. I’d lose my cool and call him out. There’s a former prosecutor named Glenn Kirschner. Maybe him, or Chris Cuomo, Howard Stern, Ed Murrow? Even wounded, Trump remains very dangerous. He has no regard for democratic processes, truth, or fairness. He will sacrifice anyone.
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Trump is a proven liar who, so far, has been found civilly liable for sexual assault and defamation of the former advice columnist E. Jean Carroll, and indicted on 34 felony counts related to the Stormy Daniels payoff. And he’s running for president again! Every statement he makes on TV should be fact-checked immediately, but the networks don’t seem to be up to the task. There’s an MSNBC host named Mehdi Hasan who’s a cut above most other talking heads, tough and smart enough to handle Trump as an interviewer/interrogator. But Trump would never let that happen; he only takes questions from journalists he knows he can bully.
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Well said and well done CNN. You just lost one viewer and sent me over to MSNBC. Anderson Cooper should be ashamed of himself.
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