Every once in a while, you get to see the contempt that the Acela Media has for regular people- for voters who live normal lives and who might not think like them. Such was the case when NBC’s Garrett Haake interviewed a voter at the Trump victory party in New Hampshire.
Watch as Haake browbeats an elderly woman on the economy, and on the facts surrounding the 2024 presidential election, during NBC News Now's coverage of the New Hampshire primary:
GARRETT HAAKE: How do you convince your friends and neighbors, the people you know, who might have voted for Nikki Haley or might have voted for Donald Trump in 2016 or 2020 who are very skeptical about kind of getting back on the Trump train? What do you say then to convince them this is the way to go?
BRIDGET TREPSA: Well, you know what it is, they don't know the facts. They listen to the fake news out there, you know. I know you're in the news, but they listen to the fake news, and that’s what they’re going by. They don't know the real- what's really going on.
HAAKE: Humor me. What are the fake facts? Try me. Try me. Seriously.
TREPSA: Like that- that he’s going to be a dictator, he’s going to do this, you know. It's all- it’s all a lot of baloney. He's going to take care of this country. Look where we are today and where we were four- four years ago.
HAAKE: What does taking care of this country look Like? Is there some specific issue where you feel like he gets and nobody else does?
TREPSA: People can go to the grocery store, and prices was- gas what, $1.87, four years- look at it today. You know, a lot of people are really suffering, they’re hurting, they don't have the money. Going out, looking for three jobs, never mind two.
HAAKE: Prices are going back down, the economy- all the economic numbers are kind of going in Joe Biden's direction right now. If the economy improves substantially before November, does any of that change your view about where we are as a country?
TREPSA: No. It’s not- Biden is not the one improving it, it’ll be Trump that’s going to improve it.
It is always fascinating to watch the media act as, in this case, Joe Biden’s praetorian guard, compelled to defend his job performance from everyday citizens- in this case, an elderly woman from New Hampshire.
The interview started innocuously enough, but it’s the “try me” that indicated the adversarial nature of the exchange. That part of the exchange seemed to betray contempt for what Mrs. Trepsa believed were the facts of the election.
As she laid out the suffering of everyday individuals, Haake coughed up a fact check which then pivoted into a favorable question on Joe Biden. But more than that, it was an attempt to secure an electoral flip-flop from the diehard Trump voter and, ultimately, an attempt to try to make her look dumb.
This contempt was further on display in subsequent questions on the legal challenges faced by President Trump. One always suspects that the Acela Media are contemptuous of their viewers and everyday voters. It is always something else to watch that contempt in real time.
