As Thursday's CNN Right Now came to a close, host Brianna Keilar took time reflect on the events of the past couple of weeks in the form of an anti-President Trump monologue. Unfortunately, the monologue was riddled with various false, misleading, and partisan criticisms.
Keilar began by lamenting, "It's only been a little more than two weeks since the Senate acquitted President Trump, and since then the president's list of actions he's under as part of his retribution tour is growing. He has vowed revenge on his perceived enemies."
She condemned Trump, "He's attacked senators who voted against him." A president criticizing senators? How horrible. Keilar then falsely alleged, "fired witnesses who testified." Lieutenant Colonel Alexander Vindman was merely reassigned to the Pentagon before he starts classes at the Army War College this summer.
Later in her monologue, Keilar repeated the often repeated, but still unproven allegation that, "He's interfered in the sentencing of Roger Stone." Continuing with Stone-related controversies, "He's attacked a juror and a federal judge" conveniently leaving out the fact that this juror ran for Congress as a Democrat and had a history of anti-Trump social media postings.
Another criticism she had was, "he's granted pardons and clemency to a crew of white collar fraudsters," which is hardly unique to Trump.
She leveled the curious criticism that Trump, "brought back loyalists into his administration." As opposed to critics? Staying on the subject of loyalty she attacked the decision to apoint Richard 'Ric' Grenell as acting director of national intelligence, "he put a loyalist with no intelligence or national security experience in charge of the nation's intelligence agencies." It's one thing to say Grenell has no intel experience, but it is false to say he has no national security experience. He has been involved in Republican foreign policy since his days at the U.N. during the Bush Administration and in addition to being ambassador to Germany, recently helped oversee a historic agreement between Serbia and Kosovo.
Keilar concluded her monologue by confidently declaring, "the president's assault on America's rule of law and other institutions is clearly evident and we will be keeping a record of it."
Here is a transcript of Keilar's February 20 monologue:
CNN
CNN Right Now with Brianna Keilar
1:59 PM ET
BRIANNA KEILAR: It's only been a little more than two weeks since the Senate acquitted President Trump, and since then the president's list of actions he's under as part of his retribution tour is growing. He has vowed revenge on his perceived enemies. He's attacked senators who voted against him, fired witnesses who testified, cheered on Republican efforts to investigate Joe Biden, cheered on his attorney general's acceptance of dirt from Rudy Giuliani. He's interfered in the sentencing of Roger Stone. He's attacked a juror and a federal judge. He has continued attacks on justice matters despite threats from his own attorney general, and he's granted pardons and clemency to a crew of white collar fraudsters. He's ousted a top Pentagon official, brought back loyalists into his administration, and he put a loyalist with no intelligence or national security experience in charge of the nation's intelligence agencies. All of these intelligence agencies. So the president's assault on America's rule of law and other institutions is clearly evident and we will be keeping a record of it.
