On Saturday afternoon’s CNN Newsroom, host Ana Cabrera conspired with radical leftist Yale professor of history Timothy Snyder to spout insane conspiracy theories about President Trump. Cabrera proclaimed that she was “unsettled” by a tweet from Snyder in which he claimed that Trump “has attempted” a “coup d’état” and Snyder responded by crazily insisting that Trump is “going for it.”
Cabrera began the segment by hyping Snyder’s book, On Tyranny, in which he compared Trump to Hitler and claimed that Trump will take over the U.S. government through a Reichstag Fire type scheme. Snyder seems to be obsessed with making psychotic accusations towards Trump, as he also told Cabrera earlier this year that U.S. Democracy is in a “precarious situation” due to Trump nominating Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court.
Cabrera then asked Snyder what he sees “as the long-term damage right now from Trump’s refusal and — and those around him to concede?” This set up Snyder to make a series of crazy claims, including comparing Mike Pompeo to authoritarians in China and Russia:
There are the national security consequences that begin now and will continue in the future, some of them you’ve already discussed on your show, all of the crisis around the world which the Biden team should be informed about, will go on and get worse during the following two months. There’s also the national security problem we’ll have and continue to have with democracy, the little clip that you showed with Secretary Pompeo is a good example of this. Mr. Pompeo is either taking part in an illegitimate attempt to keep Mr. Trump in power or he’s joking about it. If he’s taking part, that’s basically the Chinese approach to democracy that it’s not a thing. If he’s joking about it, that’s the Russian approach to democracy, that — that it’s a joke. Basically what we’re doing now is — is — is strengthening the hand of our foes.
The radical leftist then laughably attacked Trump supporters for not accepting the election results:
Long term for the United States we have the problem that a big lie, a really big lie has been introduced into the American society. We’re going to be dealing for weeks, months, perhaps even years with the reality that tens of millions of Americans will have been convinced understandably by their president that something was amiss in this election. The problem with the big lie is that the big lie separates people, and to those who have faith in the lie and those who don’t believe it, and it makes it very hard to have country, a society, it makes it very hard to have a democracy. And the particular form that the big lie takes is even more dangerous I think because the form it takes is that of a stab in the back, that we really should have won but we lost because we were betrayed. We were betrayed by the Democrats, we were betrayed by the media. And that strengthens this idea that some people are not really part of the nation, some people are traders, some people are cheaters. And if the other side are cheaters, that means we have the right to cheat the next time. So those are the consequences as I see them.
Never mind that the Democrats spent all of Trump’s term falsely claiming that Trump colluding with Russia cost Hillary Clinton the 2016 election.
Cabrera expressed that she was “unsettled” by Snyder’s tweet, which inspired him to launch into his absurd conspiracy theories (click “expand”):
CABRERA: You tweeted something that really has unsettled me as I continue to think about it this week. You wrote “What Donald Trump has attempted to do has a name, coup d’état. Poorly organized thought it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place, we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete, we are powerless.” As you mentioned, more than 72 million people voted for Donald Trump, it’s the second highest popular vote total ever. That’s after four years of him blowing up all the norms of this office and he has a strangle hold on conservative and right-wing media. So is his strategy working? Is the coup nearly complete?
SNYDER: I don’t — I don’t — I don’t think the coup is nearly complete. I mean, I think the most important thing is to see it what it is. I mean, Americans have — have many talents but unfortunately one of our talents is sleepwalking. We — we have a tendency to say, this isn’t really happening and this guy couldn’t really be doing this and if it is happening, somehow the institutions or somebody else is going to save us. Look, he’s going for it. He owes a billion dollars that he can’t pay off, he’s facing criminal investigations. Like most people of an authoritarian mindset he would like to die in his bed, ideally a comfortable bed like the White House. He’s going to go for it. That doesn’t mean he’s going to succeed. But that does mean that while he’s going for it, people have to line up, the lawyers have to do the right thing, people on the streets have to do the right thing, law enforcement has to do the right thing. The departments inside the government have to do the right thing, which means peacefully obeying the Constitution until January 21st. So if we just look away, then we lose. We have to look at it for what it is and react appropriately.
These days CNN has more in common with Infowars than a news network.
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Read the full November 14th transcript here:
CNN Newsroom
11/14/20
3:32:38 PM
ANA CABRERA: Joining us now is Timothy Snyder, professor of history at Yale university, he is the author of multiple books including Our Malady: Lessons in Liberty from a Hospital Diary and On Tyranny: 20 lessons from the 20th century, among others. Professor Snyder, it’s always good to see you and have you on. What do you see as the long-term damage right now from Trump’s refusal and — and those around him to concede?
TIMOTHY SNYDER (YALE UNIVERSITY PROFESSOR OF HISTORY): Well, first of all, there are the national security consequences that begin now and will continue in the future, some of them you’ve already discussed on your show, all of the crisis around the world which the Biden team should be informed about, will go on and get worse during the following two months. There’s also the national security problem we’ll have and continue to have with democracy, the little clip that you showed with Secretary Pompeo is a good example of this. Mr. Pompeo is either taking part in an illegitimate attempt to keep Mr. Trump in power or he’s joking about it. If he’s taking part, that’s basically the Chinese approach to democracy that it’s not a thing. If he’s joking about it, that’s the Russian approach to democracy, that — that it’s a joke. Basically what we’re doing now is — is — is strengthening the hand of our foes. Long term for the United States we have the problem that a big lie, a really big lie has been introduced into the American society. We’re going to be dealing for weeks, months, perhaps even years with the reality that tens of millions of Americans will have been convinced understandably by their president that something was amiss in this election. The problem with the big lie is that the big lie separates people, and to those who have faith in the lie and those who don’t believe it, and it makes it very hard to have country, a society, it makes it very hard to have a democracy. And the particular form that the big lie takes is even more dangerous I think because the form it takes is that of a stab in the back, that we really should have won but we lost because we were betrayed. We were betrayed by the Democrats, we were betrayed by the media. And that strengthens this idea that some people are not really part of the nation, some people are traders, some people are cheaters. And if the other side are cheaters, that means we have the right to cheat the next time. So those are the consequences as I see them.
CABRERA: You tweeted something that really has unsettled me as I continue to think about it this week. You wrote “What Donald Trump has attempted to do has a name, coup d’état. Poorly organized thought it might seem, it is not bound to fail. It must be made to fail. Coups are defeated quickly or not at all. While they take place, we are meant to look away, as many of us are doing. When they are complete, we are powerless.” As you mentioned, more than 72 million people voted for Donald Trump, it’s the second highest popular vote total ever. That’s after four years of him blowing up all the norms of this office and he has a strangle hold on conservative and right-wing media. So is his strategy working? Is the coup nearly complete?
SNYDER: I don’t — I don’t — I don’t think the coup is nearly complete. I mean, I think the most important thing is to see it what it is. I mean, Americans have — have many talents but unfortunately one of our talents is sleepwalking. We — we have a tendency to say, this isn’t really happening and this guy couldn’t really be doing this and if it is happening, somehow the institutions or somebody else is going to save us. Look, he’s going for it. He owes a billion dollars that he can’t pay off, he’s facing criminal investigations. Like most people of an authoritarian mindset he would like to die in his bed, ideally a comfortable bed like the White House. He’s going to go for it. That doesn’t mean he’s going to succeed. But that does mean that while he’s going for it, people have to line up, the lawyers have to do the right thing, people on the streets have to do the right thing, law enforcement has to do the right thing. The departments inside the government have to do the right thing, which means peacefully obeying the Constitution until January 21st. So if we just look away, then we lose. We have to look at it for what it is and react appropriately.
CABRERA: Right now, a lot of people aren’t doing the right thing, we played the clip of so many people within the administration who are saying exactly what the President wants to hear. I want to play you something that former president Barack Obama said during an interview airing tomorrow on 60 Minutes.
(Cuts to clip)
BARACK OBAMA: I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better, are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration but democracy generally and that’s a dangerous path.
(Cuts to live)
CABRERA: So Tim, when you say everybody has to do the right thing around this president and we see only a handful of GOP lawmakers even acknowledging Joe Biden as President-Elect, what – what do you make of that response from Republican lawmakers?
SNYDER: I mean I think at — at a tactical level it’s probably a mistake. I mean, I — I think the next Republican president is going to be the first person who calls Mr. Trump a loser. But at — at a moral level of course this is doing grievous harm, as President Obama says, to the country. The — the continuity –the constitutional continuity of the United States of America depends upon the losers accepting elections and even when losers have been very unhappy from Adams to Hoover, they have always accepted the outcome. When you say in the end the vote doesn’t matter, then you’re saying we should be the kind of country where this sort of thing happens. Mr. Trump may not win but what he’s doing is saying I and my followers should aspire to be the kind of country where voting doesn’t matter. We should aspire to be the kind of country where the institutions don’t really matter, where morality and the law don’t really matter. And that — that is the message he’s pushing and it’s a message people have to have the courage, and not just Democrats, people have to have the courage to stand up against, right? Republicans used to admire the dissidence against communism. What dissidence against communism said is you speak truth to power, you set an example, and by your own actions you try to illustrate how people should behave in democracy and then maybe your example will be followed. They’re not living up to that.
CABRERA: We hope everybody’s listening closely to what you had to say, Professor. Timothy Snyder. Thank you for enlightening all of us and educating us.