On CNN this morning, host Kasie Hunt described the attempted assassination of Donald Trump in blunt, truthful terms as:
"A massive failure by the Secret Service."
Moments later, when panelist Elliott Williams, in the context of a discussion of unverified information on social media, made mention of people floating the notion of an "inside job," Hunt shut him down, saying:
"We don't want to get into that."
Hunt might well have valid journalistic reasons for shutting down speculation about an inside job.
Although it was not as if the person who raised it, Elliott Williams, did so to lend credence to the notion. To the contrary, Williams, a CNN analyst, is a former Obama DoJ official. He mentioned "inside job" in the context of criticizing unverified information on social media.
Williams told people to "put away the social media." He said there's a reason that news organizations are slower to put out information: because some of it is inaccurate. Should we really ignore social media, which has broken many true stories that the MSM has suppressed, and get our information exclusively from the likes of CNN and MSNBC?
There was not one Trump supporter on the panel.
In addition to former Obama official Williams, there was:
- Andrew McCabe, the Hillary Clinton defender, who, as our Nicholas Fondacaro has noted, was fired from the FBI for leaking to the press and lying to investigators about it.
- Disaffected former Trump staffer turned Trump critic Alyssa Farah Griffin.
- Karen Finney, spox for Hillary's 2016 campaign.
- Never Trumper Doug Heye.
- Former Secret Service agent Jonathan Wackrow, now a senior exec with Teneo, a private security firm with close ties to the Clintons.
The day after the assassination attempt on Trump, Kasie couldn't find one person who actually supports the former president?
Here's the transcript.
CNN
7/14/24
7:13 am EDTKASIE HUNT: Jonathan Wackrow, let me follow up with you about the role of the Secret Service here.
I think we want to be very careful to note, and have been throughout the morning, that there were heroes there that stepped in, potentially put their lives on the line for the former president. Obviously, there was a, you could see, we have pictures of the sharpshooting team that was responsible for ultimately making sure that this man wasn't able to fire more shots. And of course, the shooter is now dead.
But this does indicate a massive failure by the, by the, by the Secret Service, by the people that were supposed to protect the former president from an incident like this.
. . .
ELLIOT WILLIAMS: It's also a great time to remind the world to put away the social media. And not that social media does not have a powerful impact on all of our lives. But the simple fact is, a lot of the information that came out immediately after, and is still continuing to be spread on all sides. It is not accurate.
And I think, and even the leadership of X was tweeting, or x-ing as it were, that, well. look at us. We're getting all this information out there. Well, it's not verified information!
There's a reason why news organizations are slower to put some of that out. Because a lot of it ends up being inaccurate. And I think we have this, it's almost a glorification of the ability to get all this information out there that's simply not verified, in a time when the public needs calm and answers, not being the first person to get this information out.
DOUG HEYE: It's not just information. Look, Trump supporters right now, certainly the people at the rally, people who were watching it. They're angry right now. They have every right to be angry. And people in America regardless of what you where you fall in politics, have a right to be angry with where the country is and where we're moving. Of course.
When I, when I first heard of the shooting, I immediately went on X. And it wasn't the disinformation that I saw. It was, it was the hate. And it was Democrats who were using memes that, unfortunately this was unsuccessful. That is hate.
WILLIAMS: Without question.
HEYE: And if this had happened to Joe Biden, I have no doubt that people that I know, probably, would be making jokes. That is hate.
WILLIAMS: Yeah. Without question. Right? And then on top of that, it's also the, was this an inside job? And this is the rhetoric of Democrats.
HUNT: We don't want to get into that.
