In the run-up to the debate, Republicans–some seriously, others more in jest–have been suggesting that Biden might be “jacked up” on any number of different substances, including cocaine.
On CNN This Morning, you might say that Never Trumper and CNN commentator Jonah Goldberg metaphorically tried to turn the cocaine tables on Republicans.
After stating he usually believes debates aren’t that important, he thinks this one is. He said this is about reassuring voters.
GOLDBERG: This is about reassuring people for two candidates that people have a lot of misgivings about, right? For Biden, it’s not misgivings necessarily about his character. It’s misgivings about his age. It’s whether he’s up to the job.
And for Trump, It’s misgivings about, dear God, are we going to go back to four more years of the kind of chaos, of him being in our head space again. Can I handle that? Can I make peace with that? Or is it going to be four more years of him tweeting like an escaped monkey from a cocaine study?”
Host Kasie Hunt interjected — “That’s why Shermichael is here”—the notion being that panelist Shermichael Singleton is a loyal, Trump-supporting Republican who would counter Goldberg’s argument.
In fact, Singleton was fired from his position at HUD for having written an article prior to the 2016 election critical of Trump. And contrary to Hunt’s claim that Goldberg and Singleton are Republicans, as our Alex Christy has noted, and per this article, Singleton quit the GOP in 2020.
So, neither of CNN’s “Republicans” were in any way members of the mainstream of the party, which made Trump its candidate by overwhelming margins. In contrast, the Democrat on the panel was Biden’s former comms director, Kate Bedingfield, a deeply partisan Biden supporter.
Later, after Bedingfield proclaimed that the Supreme Court overturning Roe v. Wade is a “potent” issue for Biden to use against Trump, Singleton said “I agree with Kate. I think that may be one of the more stronger moments for President Biden on this issue.”
So Hunt’s description of her panelists as representing “the three pieces of American political thinking” was a fraud.
Notice that this is CNN, where you can dehumanize Trump into an animal on drugs, and Kasie Hunt laughs. No one’s going to cut that microphone. CNN and the rest wildly caricature Trump comparing MS-13 killers to “animals” as being about all immigrants.
Later as they discussed the Supreme Court’s impending ruling on presidential immunity, Goldberg returned to the political cartooning of Trump: “There is no way this court is going to give Donald Trump what he thinks he can get, which is total and complete immunity to kill all my foes. Right?”
CNN hailed Goldberg when he quit Fox, as a stand for “truth.” This is considered the “truth” at CNN. Or at least what thrills its audience.