On Wednesday morning, CNN's New Day show devoted its "Reality Check" segment to complaining that President Donald Trump has not been as liberal on gay rights as they expected he might be when he was running for President.
Picking up on a rule change which prevents diplomats from other countries from getting visas for gay romantic partners they are not married to because heterosexual couples are already not entitled to get such visas, co-host Alisyn Camerota introduced the segment:
From waving a pride flag at a campaign rally to specifically mentioning the LGBT struggle, Donald Trump was supposed to be one of the most progressive Republican Presidents when it came to gay rights, but it has not worked out that way. And the latest example is in need of a reality check.
After noting that gay dipomats would not be able to get visas for same-sex parners, Avlon fretted: "It's the Trump administration's latest departure from a campaign that promised to be different from past Republicans when it came to gay rights."
After showing a clip of Trump promising in 2016 to protect homosexuals from Muslim terrorists, the CNN analyst called it "progress" that a Republican presidential nominee was willing to use the term "LGBTQ," and then claimed that his promise "faded fast" because of actions the Trump administration took over the past couple of years on the issue of gay rights.
He listed several rollbacks of pro-gay rules that had been instituted by the Obama adminstration and complained that diplomats from countries that do not allow gay marriage would be effected by the latest rule change.
Avlon then quoted former Obama administration ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power calling the change "needlessly cruel and bigoted."
Nearing the end of the segment, he cited Pew Research Center polling showing world public opinion toward President Trump is worse than that toward the leaders of China and Russia.
Co-anchor John Berman then fretted that the rule change on gay couples "is a message that is sent around the world."
