Tag: cnn
Top Tech Reporter Explains Why Musk Is Unfit For Government Position

Top Tech Reporter Explains Why Musk Is Unfit For Government Position

Tech reporter Kara Swisher on Wednesday refuted CNN conservative strategist Scott Jennings’ effusive praise of billionaire Elon Musk, arguing you “can separate” the billionaire X owner’s “heinous behavior” from his entrepreneurship — “if you have half a brain.”

Musk on Tuesday watched election returns with Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago as the country overwhelmingly elected the former president to another four years in the White House. As the Washington Post reported Wednesday, Musk has future political ambitions, and has “repeatedly discussed with Trump the idea of joining a new commission to slash federal spending by as much as $2 trillion" when the he takes office next year.

Jennings on Wednesday implored his fellow panelists to “be nice” to Musk, arguing voters “want unconventional” — and Musk will bring just that to the Trump Administration.

Swisher, who’s interviewed Musk over 30 times, had less praise for the billionaire.


“I'm looking at a lot of things,” Swisher said. “The instability and the decisions that he makes are sometimes haphazard and strange, often.”

The tech reporter said Musk “is allowed to blow up rockets because he can do it and take those risks and the shareholders go along with him,” but argued “it’s a different thing when it comes to the federal government.”

“People's lives depend on it,” Swisher said. “I know you think its funny and I don't think that it's funny at all.”

The reporter went on to argue that if Trump and Musk treat the federal government like a startup, “the least among us suffer — and that’s just the way it is.”

“[Musk] has a history of doing that, lack of safety at certain of his facilities, and he has a history of firing people,” Swisher said. “And a history of not paying people. And he has a history of being haphazard and firing someone who talks back against him. And for someone who is for free speech, he clamps down on speech a lot it when he doesn't like it. So if you want that too, that's great and hah, hah if you want to do it that way.”

Swisher suggested Musk could merge X with Trump’s social media company Truth Social.

“That could be interesting and incredibly corrupt and he'll use it as a propaganda organ which is precisely why he bought it,” she said. “This was a great investment by Elon Musk in Donald J. Trump.”

Jennings argued that Musk “wasn’t elected” and merely “supports Donald Trump, and now he's going to have influence because his side won.”


“Honestly, I hear all of this carping about Elon Musk and it sounds like sour grapes from the side of the ball that shunned this guy and now they're paying for it,” he said, later arguing “you can't begrudge this man, his opportunity to participate in the political system in the way that he sees fit.”

“Nobody begrudges his ability to speak,” Swisher shot back. “What they begrudge is the flood of misinformation and all kinds of things that happen on that platform — which is uncontrolled and it's not about free speech, because he decides when and where to do it.”

Swisher noted Trump and Elon “may not be able to coexist in the same place” as they’re both “very petulant” and like attention.

"He and Trump will clash at some point, much in the same way that he clashed with the Biden Administration,” Swisher predicted.

The tech reporter added that while Trump gets credit for his space exploration and electric cars, “what he doesn't get credit for [is] his heinous behavior and bringing people down — and that troubles me.”

“And you can separate it from the entrepreneurship if you have half a brain,” the reporter added.

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

Debate Jitters: Trump Aides Fear Ex-President Is 'Walking Into A Trap'

Debate Jitters: Trump Aides Fear Ex-President Is 'Walking Into A Trap'

Some of President Joe Biden's supporters have been arguing that he never should have agreed to debate presumptive 2024 GOP presidential nominee Donald Trump, but other Biden supporters don't see it that way at all — stressing that Trump would have attacked Biden as weak had he not agreed to a debate. Moreover, they add, Biden has repeatedly demonstrated over the years that he can be a tough, forceful debater.

Meanwhile, far-right War Room host Steve Bannon, according to Vanity Fair's Gabriel Sherman, is saying that Trump, not Biden, is the one who has the most to lose during the Thursday night, June 27 debate — which is being moderated by CNN hosts Jake Tapper and Dana Bash in Atlanta.

"According to two sources," Sherman reports, "Steve Bannon has told people Trump should never have agreed to debate. One of the sources told me Bannon explained that if Biden bombs the debate, Democrats will find a way to replace Biden on the ticket — a scenario (Trump senior adviser Jason) Miller shot down — and if Biden performs well, the race becomes even closer. Bannon declined to comment."

Miller, however, did comment on the June 27 debate, claiming that the format will be unfair to Trump.

Miller told Vanity Fair, "It's a three-on-one dynamic with Biden, Tapper and Bash. The structure makes it impossible for President Trump to get a fair shake."

After spending months falsely claiming that Biden is senile, Trump's supporters have come up with a new line of attack to explain his aggressive speeches on the campaign trail and during the 2024 State of the Union address: claiming that the 81-year-old president is using some type of drug to make himself appear more energetic — a claim there is zero evidence to support.

"A strong showing by Biden will neutralize Trump's claims about his opponent's cognitive decline," Sherman explains. "The Trump campaign knows this."

Sherman continues, "That's why, in recent days, Trump and his aides have been working overtime to mitigate the damage should Biden deliver a commanding performance similar to his fiery State of the Union address…. Trump wants to keep up the attacks on Biden's age while also explaining away a potentially strong performance from Biden. Some in Trumpworld are worried Trump is walking into a trap."

Reprinted with permission from Alternet

As Debate Looms, Trump Suddenly Says He Won't 'Underestimate' Biden

As Debate Looms, Trump Suddenly Says He Won't 'Underestimate' Biden

One week ahead of CNN's debate between former President Donald Trump and President Joe Biden, the MAGA hopeful admitted that he isn't "underestimating" the president, despite taking aim at his mental acuity for months.

POLITICO national political correspondent Meredith McGraw wrote via X (formerly Twitter), "Trump to @theallinpod on upcoming debate against Biden: 'All I can say is this, I watched him with [former US Rep.] Paul Ryan (R-OH) and he destroyed Paul Ryan. Paul Ryan with the water, he was chugging water left and right...and he beat Paul Ryan. So I'm not underestimating him.'"

McGraw added, "Trump on Biden: 'I think he will be somebody who will be a worthy debater. I don't want to underestimate him.'"

Crooked Media co-founder Jon Favreau said, "Two other times Trump watched Biden debate...when they debated each other four years ago I can see why Trump might not have remembered the first time since he was sweaty and feverish due to the highly contagious and deadly virus he chose to hide from everyone."

Attorney Bradley P. Moss commented, "For four years, Trump and his media lackeys have told us Biden is a drooling dementia patient who can barely walk and doesn’t know where he is. But now he is a proven debater worthy of Trump?"

NY Daily News columnist Brandon Friedman wrote, "Trump forgot that he debated Joe Biden in 2020"

Politico California bureau chief Christopher Cadelago added, "Biden and Ryan debated eight years before Trump and Biden last debated. Trump is reaching back a long way to help set expectations. And he’s setting the bar a lot higher than heading into Biden’s last State of the Union."

ABC News Will Steakin commented, "Trump says he’s 'not underestimating' Joe Biden, who he’s also said 'doesn't know he's alive.'"

Reprinted with permission from Alternet.

No, Bad News For Trump Doesn't Make Him 'Stronger'

No, Bad News For Trump Doesn't Make Him 'Stronger'

When Donald Trump was found guilty on 34 felony counts, theLos Angeles Times had their response ready. “The guilty verdict only makes Donald Trump stronger,” read the headline to the May 30 article by Scott Jennings, a CNN commentator and special assistant to former President George W. Bush.

“It was jarring to hear my CNN colleague Jake Tapper say ‘guilty’ 34 straight times,” wrote Jennings. “And it was equally jarring to see text after text pop up on my phone from decidedly non-MAGA Republicans, but also not Never Trumpers, all sounding the same note: ‘I don’t like this man, and now I think I have to vote for him.’”

Some ideas get so embedded in people’s heads that even those who should know better start to accept them automatically. One of those ideas is that any time Trump is attacked—whether it is through impeachment, indictment, being held responsible in a civil trial, or being convicted in a criminal trial—it only makes him stronger.

That idea is bullshit. Or to put it in technical terms, colossal bullshit.

I do not think Jennings was getting “text after text” from people who didn’t previously support Trump telling him “now I think I have to vote for him” because he had become a convicted felon.

Again, I call bullshit.

It doesn’t take a lot of searching to find similar opinions to Jennings. One day later, Fox News contributor and CEO of the Harris Poll, Mark Penn, wrote that conviction would make “the right rally and coalesce even more around former President Donald Trump.”

Penn blew off overnight poll results showing that people seemed ready to abandon Trump over the conviction, which seems like a somewhat questionable position for a man who runs a polling organization. Instead, Penn bet that Trump would gain “more energized, angry voters.”

“This is ultimately what angers the voters—the idea that there is one system of justice for some and another for their choice if it’s Donald Trump,” Penn wrote.

Except that there’s one bit of calculus that Penn and every other Republican seems to be ignoring: the vote of an angry, energized, Trump supporter convinced that their man got a raw deal in court is worth exactly one vote. It’s hard to believe that any of those “angry” or “energized” by Trump’s verdict were not already Trump supporters going in. And all the anger and energy in the world won’t make their vote worth any more than the most disinterested voter who pulls the lever for President Joe Biden.

The idea that Penn and Jennings are selling is that narrative that Republicans, and Trump, want everyone to believe: It’s the “every time he gets knocked down again, he gets up stronger” thesis. And it is, what’s that word again? Bullshit.

Every time Trump is held accountable, every MAGA account on X seems to spew “Democrats just elected Trump!” Because, somehow, they seem to be convinced that everyone else is just as angry about a slight to Trump as the folks in their Let’s Go Brandon support group.

We’re not.

Three weeks after Trump’s conviction, the latest poll from The Hill/Ipsos shows that 21 percent of independent voters are less likely to support Trump following his conviction. Those same voters say that the guilty verdict is “very important” to how they will vote in November.

If Republicans genuinely believed that non-Trump supporters would be angered by the idea that a powerful billionaire might be held to account for a host of crimes—that Donald Trump would not be held to the rules that apply to anyone else—they were wrong.

If Republicans need more evidence, they might want to roll back to this Kathleen Parker opinion piece in The Washington Post after Trump’s first impeachment.

“I’ll be brief: President Trump will not be convicted by the U.S. Senate, and his positioning for reelection will have been strengthened by the process,” Parker wrote in 2019.

She went on to rail against the “Mother Superior Nancy Pelosi, the prim and pursed-lipped Adam Schiff and grumpy scold-meister Jerrold Nadler” while explaining that impeachment would only encourage people to “take their chances with a player like Trump.”

Trump supporters were right there with Parker. So was Trump. He told those attending his rally that he intended to use his impeachment against Democrats. Trump supporters cheered him on and reassured their candidate that they were sticking with him.

Spoiler alert: Other people did not go with the “player” because he got impeached. Trump lost decisively in 2020. Impeachment did not make him stronger. Neither did indictment. Neither did conviction.

Earlier this month, an ABC poll of independent voters found a majority wanted Trump to drop out of the race. In fact, 16 percent of Republicans felt that Trump should withdraw.

I’m guessing that none of those people were texting Jennings to tell him that they guessed they had to vote for Trump.

On Monday, the Trump-worshiping Washington Examiner moved to the next stanza in the "Trump Always Comes Back Stronger" theme song.

Republicans are warning Democrats that if former President Donald Trump’s sentence in his New York criminal case prevents him from attending the Republican National Committee convention, it will guarantee a red wave for the 2024 election.

They’re “warning” us, are they? I think there’s only one answer to this. And it’s just one word.

Reprinted with permission from Daily Kos.

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