As the Fourth Estate Crumbles

No more NBC morning soap opera for me. Sick to death of the Matt, Savannah and Trump love fest. 

After screwing up earlier this week and allowing “The Donald” to spew implausible excuses for his David Duke/KKK debacle on CNN last Sunday, this morning Savannah swallowed more of Trump’s lies without even engaging a gag reflex.

Savannah Gutherie, Trump's biggest fan.

The NBC pair was called out after placating to Trump on Monday and allowing him to pretend a “very bad earpiece” was to blame for his lack of admonishment of David Duke and his KKK amnesia. But the transcript of the CNN interview that both Matt and Savannah should have read before the interview proves that claim absurd. During the interview with Jake Trapper Trump repeats Duke’s name several times but still refuses to disavow the former KKK leader. Clearly Trump’s handlers were not on standby and the billionaire bully was desperately trying to preserve his national base of support among racists.

Today Savannah advanced the issue one more time but not as one might think, to hold Trump accountable for obviously misleading her earlier in the week, but to give him an opportunity to set the record straight. With no mention of a faulty earpiece Trump’s new excuse was that he never actually met David Duke in person and for that reason couldn’t speak to the credibility of the man.

Really?! Savannah, you just let that go? Then any hope I had of Matt jumping in to wave the flag of journalistic integrity faded as he sat back and watched the circus continue without a word.

Trump went on to claim the opportunity was not there to disavow the KKK because Trapper asked him about white supremacy groups. That is “groups” plural. So Trump suggested that naturally he couldn't just disavow a bunch of groups because while some might be nefarious there might be one that is okay.

Seriously?! We aren’t talking about bananas here. It was quite clear that Trapper was referring to hate groups. Hate groups that are the foundation of Trump’s support.

The politically unschooled GOP frontrunner who quotes the Italian fascist Benito Mussolini unwittingly exposed his covert connection to a racist Twitter account in January retweeting an @whitegenocide post with a meme of a homeless looking Jeb Bush holding a sign for Trump in front of Trump Towers.

And still Savannah has no problem smiling sweetly at Trump and promising to put the issue to rest now that he has disavowed Duke for an eleventy-twelfth time on national television.

Trump disavowed Duke before the CNN interview, more than a decade ago, and then again after the interview, I’m sure at the urging of his handlers. But the real Donald Trump, the one who painted every Muslim in the country with a broad stroke of get the hell out, the one who calls Mexicans lazy, rapists and otherwise criminals, the one who disrespects women and mocks people with disabilities, the one who attacks anyone who disagrees with him with the intellect of a school yard punk, that was the man who spoke candidly on CNN last Sunday. 

Wake up Savannah and Matt. But it won’t be with me. I have already changed the channel. #NotToday