CNN Right Now host Brianna Keilar played the usual game of Help the Democrat on Monday when interviewing liberal Congressman Gerry Connolly from Virginia's D.C. suburbs. First, she suggested Trump's justifications for taking out Qasem Soleimani were "fishy." Then Keilar laid out how Connolly criticized Trump for tweeting support for Iran's protesters, that "it's a bit much for the president to be lecturing others about press freedoms considering how he treats the press in the U.S."
As if criticizing the press and trolling them on Twitter is equivalent to suppressing it, shooting protestors, or cutting access the internet.
Keilar added "The Iranian Foreign Minister though said, the foreign minister’s spokesman said the president is dishonoring the Persian language. Do you think he was?" Connolly said no, "although it may be too cute by half to be using Farsi." Keilar said "Why is that?"
Connolly pulled out the race card: "Well, you're the American President and clearly you don't speak Farsi. Your tweets are heavily laden with sarcasm, and in some cases bordering on the racist, if not crossing that border for political opponents, for the press, for anybody who is his target. He might be better off simply sticking to English."
Others to tweet in Farsi have included Michael Moore and media favorite George Conway who trolled Trump with a Farsi tweet about impeachment. Were they being "too cute by half?" Surely if Obama tweeted in Farsi, CNN would be all in favor of it.
All of this because Keilar earlier wondered if "maybe there is something fishy going on with the justification" of the Soleimani strike.
Here is a transcript:
CNN
CNN Right Now with Brianna Keilar
1:20 PM ET
BRIANNA KEILAR: But are there any consequences for the fact that these stories are all over the place, that revealing that maybe there is something fishy going on with the justification? Is there any? Can Congress do anything?
GERRY CONNOLLY: That's a really good point, Brianna. I think there should be because it shows a complete lack of respect to the legislative branch, it shows a lack of respect for the constitutional separations of powers and respect for the constitutional provision in Article I that clearly makes the Congress preeminent in making decisions about war and peace. And the fact that you'd be willing to go before the entire U.S. House, the entire U.S. Congress and make it up and put us at risk perhaps for years in terms of tit for tat, in terms of retaliation and revenge, in terms of more terrorism, that's a very consequential thing that really has to be looked at very carefully.
KEILAR: The president has tweeted -- he tweeted out his support for the protesters in Iran first in English and then in Farsi. I know you’ve addressed this, you essentially said it's a bit much for the president to be lecturing others about press freedoms considering how he treats the press in the U.S. But you did acknowledge there are forces in Iran that want reform and basically those forces should be spoken to, right, should be spoken to by the U.S.. The Iranian Foreign Minister though said—the foreign minister’s spokesman—said the president is dishonoring the Persian language. Do you think he was?
CONNOLLY: No, although it may be too cute by a half to be using Farsi. I will point out--
KEILAR: Why is that?
CONNOLLY: Well, you're the American President and clearly you don't speak Farsi. Your tweets are heavily laden with sarcasm, and in some cases bordering on the racist, if not crossing that border for political opponents, for the press, for anybody who is his target. He might be better off simply sticking to English.
