Wednesday’s CBS Mornings and Reliable Sources Daily on CNN+ flashed the profession’s virulent hatred for conservatives by giving cushy interviews to Daily Show correspondent and failed Comedy Central host Jordan Klepper ahead of his new special trashing Hungary as a bastion of authoritarianism reminiscent of what Governor Ron DeSantis (R-FL) has done with Florida.
Having established himself as the show’s correspondent who paints non-leftists as some combination of dangerous, idiotic, and underdeveloped, Klepper was welcomed with four teases on CBS. In the first, fill-in co-host Vladimir Duthiers said Klepper investigated “an unusual fascination shared by some supporters of former President Trump” in Hungary’s “authoritarian government” (under Viktor Orban).
Dokoupil began the piece by touting his recent trip to CPAC 2022 and how that led to visiting Budapest, Hungary to find out “why so many seem to look to Hungary and its authoritarian leader as a model for America’s future.”
At one point, co-host and Democratic Party donor Gayle King had the gall to invoke Hunter Biden and his laptop as if it were some slur (click “expand”):
KING: Were you surprised to see that people there say that Joe Biden is fake? That his presidency is not legit? Somebody even brought up Hunter Biden’s laptop. I was so — I was blown away by that.
KLEPPER: Yes.
KING: That was a topic of conversation in Hungary.
KLEPPER: I thought I was escaping those conversations for a mere 10 days. But when we landed in their March 15th, they have a giant event, and I was shocked, I thought we’re going to talk about what was happening in Ukraine —
KING: Yes.
KLEPPER: — which is literally next door to Hungary, Hunter Biden’s laptop came out of their mouths, so it felt like I hadn’t gotten very far.
Dokoupil then remarked how it’s been “amazing...how Hungary has declined from a near democracy to what has been qualified as an authoritarian state” with Duthiers wondering “how” Klepper “see[s] the antecedents here in the U.S.”
Klepper obliged by explaining that Hungary’s made “voting harder,” created “a lot of gerrymandering,” fostered a media landscape that’s “owned by wealthy oligarchs who have connections to the ruling party,” and “villified” “the LGBTQ community.”
As a side note on the media angle, if it’s some right-wing playbook, then how would Klepper explain the executives who run ABC, CBS, CNN, NBCUniversal (aka Comcast), and the major papers?
Moving on, Klepper made his Florida comparison by saying:
[I]f you look at what’s happening in Florida right now and you start to see that thing happening here. And so when you see this democracy slide, in a European country, it’s that frog boiling in water. Democracy is fragile. And so when you’re back here in America, look, it might look a lot like what’s happening there.
King was mesmerized, wanting to find out what Klepper took away from Hungary. In response, he argued it was that “[d]emocracy is fragile, and you have to stay vigilant.”
Following an exchange about misinformation and how it’s a farce to argue George Soros is “the boogeyman who controls things,” the co-hosts and Klepper closed by mocking conservatives who show him kindness and welcome him to CPAC (as opposed to being “public enemy number one) seeing as how he “turn[s]” them “into dartboards.”
A few hours later, Klepper joined media janitor Brian Stelter for more of the same, including the same condescending dismissal people would mention Hunter Biden’s laptop.
Klepper lamented the angle about refusal to kowtow to the LGBTQ agenda, claiming they’re being ostracized and thus a country where “progressives...are frustrated” and cities aren’t able to be left-wing bastions with “liberties...stamped out” and “a brain drain of young people.”
“Hungary was — was progressive 15 years ago. I talked to people who were there, like, it was more inclusive, more open, and now that’s changing and changing and changing and the ability to actually change that narrative, it’s harder for people with a progressive mindset,” Klepper added.
Stelter then commiserated with him about how similar Orban and Hungary are to Republicans and red states given “the anti-trans legislation” and “anti-gay narratives in GOP media.”
This gave Klepper the room to argue such legislation that forbids the teaching of sex education and encouraging of transgenderism toward young children is dangerous and will lead to a world in which gay people are seen as pedophiles (click “expand”):
KLEPPER: I think what they’ve done successfully is they start to equate homosexuality with pedophilia and therefore they can pass vague laws under the umbrella of protecting children and you have a media landscape who is now afraid of what they call is propaganda toward a gay lifestyle. What that really means is, suddenly, you have a positive gay character in a Friends episode. Now, people don’t know if that can be on television and so, the landscape changes.
STELTER: Right.
KLEPPER: You stop [sic] seeing less representation and because you’ve conflated sexuality with pedophila and you bring that to the voting booth, well, a lot of people don’t know enough about the issues and they’re against pedophila and suddenly, they’re voting against a narrative that is keeping a lot of people out.
STELTER: Right.
KLEPPER: And I see what’s happening in Florida and I look to Hungary —
STELTER: Right.
KLEPPER: — and I’m like, that’s where that slide goes.
Not surprisingly and given Stelter’s own visceral hate for conservatives, he too joined in as Klepper mocked the “lowly educated folks” at Trump rallies who welcome him.
CBS’s sneering of conservatives and cheering of a fellow elitist refusing to see them as genuine humans capable of good was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as BMW and Honda. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant transcripts from April 20, click here (for CBS) and here (for CNN+).
