THE SHOW NOTES: The Donald Trump-CNN No Win Situation
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Trump & CNN
Donald Trump’s highly anticipated return to CNN left no topic untouched in a 70-minute town hall in front of a deeply sympathetic crowd. Kaitlan Collins pressed Trump on a myriad of topics ranging from January 6th to Ukraine and attempted to fact-check the former president in real-time.
The result for Trump: In what was intended to be a strategic play to broaden the base of Trump’s support to moderate Republicans and suburban women who fled the former president in 2020, last night’s performance felt closer to a rallying cry designed for the hardest of hardcore Trump enthusiasts. Trump repeatedly claimed the 2020 election was stolen, January 6th was no big deal and refused to say he wanted Ukraine to win.
The result for CNN: The network was excoriated by media pundits on the left for “platforming” Donald Trump. Despite the backlash, the move underscores CNN’s new approach to news under Chris Licht’s leadership. Instead of being MSNBC-light, Licht is rebranding the network to return to its roots by covering news and newsmakers. Go read Jon Ralstan’s defense of CNN.
My take on Twitter: Chris Licht was brave to put on Trump in a Town Hall. He and his network were always going to be attacked for it from both sides. But the reality is Trump is the front-runner of one of the two major political parties and a former president. He should be treated as such.
Go read this: My friend Chris Wilson is inarguably one of the top GOP pollsters in the country. His team went back and analyzed public polling to evaluate the impact of Donald Trump on the 2018 and 2022 midterms. Again, Elon Musk won’t let Substack embed tweets so here are the takeaways:
Trump’s endorsement of a GOP candidate had a meaningfully negative impact in 2018 costing Republicans approximately 11 House seats and 4 Senate seats.
A Trump endorsement of a 2018 Republican candidate resulted in a surge in donations… for the Democratic challenger.
A Trump-endorsed candidate in 2022 saw their favorability go down and their Democratic opponents go up.
A Trump congressional endorsement in 2022 cost the candidate roughly six points ultimately killing Republicans shot at control of the Senate.
FBI Protecting Biden?
Yesterday we covered the shocking allegations from the House Oversight Committee claiming Joe Biden and his family made millions of dollars from foreign governments while Biden was Vice President.
Today we learn that the FBI is refusing to release an informant file to James Comer’s House Oversight Committee despite being legally bound to do so. The file purportedly proves that President Biden and his family improperly enriched themselves while Biden was Vice Preside. Here’s what Comer said:
“We’ve asked the FBI to not only provide this record, but to also inform us what it did to investigate these allegations. The FBI has failed to do both. The FBI’s position is ‘trust, but you aren’t allowed to verify.’ That is unacceptable.”
Climate Chaos
Joe Biden quietly released new climate rules that will force power companies to cut their emissions by 90% or face shutting down by 2035. Plants burning coal or natural gas would be impacted the most despite producing the vast majority of the nation’s energy.
Why this matters: The woefully under-reported story is Biden’s latest move in forcing the energy sector to adopt green policies that are simply not ready for prime time. The same administration that adamantly opposes nuclear power is now slashing the only reliable forms of energy we have left.
Sanctioning China
Reuters has a bombshell of a story chronicling the concerted efforts of the Biden administration to shrug off blatant attacks from China. While US officials were certain the infamous Chinese spy balloon would provoke the Biden administration to adopt sanctions against China, the event was largely ignored.
To make matters worse, the Secretary of State has largely demoted all issues related to China to his second in command, Wendy Sherman. Sherman is responsible for blocking sanctions against CCP officials and the Chinese state-affiliated Huawei for spying on Americans.
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