CNN Editor Says Attacking Biden's Health Is Wrong, Forgets What CNN Did to Trump in 2016
CNN’s hypocrisy truly knows no bounds.
In a Tuesday article, CNN editor-at-large Chris Cillizza claimed President Donald Trump and Fox News have been “dog-whistling on Joe Biden” in regard to the former vice president’s health.
“For anyone who watches Fox News Channel, it’s not at all surprising that its anchors and hosts (with few notable exceptions) talk up President Donald Trump while knocking down the Democrats running against him in 2020,” Cillizza wrote.
“There are ratings in partisanship — so Fox News engages in partisanship.”
“But even partisanship should have its limits,” Cillizza continued. “And one of those limits should be raising entirely unfounded questions about a presidential candidate’s health. Which is exactly what two Fox News personalities — [Lisa] Kennedy and Sean Hannity — have done.”
Cillizza then cited a Daily Beast report by Justin Baragona that claimed Kennedy and Hannity have speculated about Biden’s health on four different occasions in recent days.
“Joe Biden’s tired,” Hannity said early last week. “He does not have the energy for this. He’s not up for this challenge. They’re already hiding him like they hid [2016 Democrat presidential nominee] Hillary [Clinton]. They don’t want him out there.”
One night earlier, Kennedy had asserted on her show that Biden “says stupid things and slurs,” and also “does look very tired.”
These suppositions by Fox anchors resembled Trump’s attacks on “Sleepy Joe.”
Welcome to the race Sleepy Joe. I only hope you have the intelligence, long in doubt, to wage a successful primary campaign. It will be nasty – you will be dealing with people who truly have some very sick & demented ideas. But if you make it, I will see you at the Starting Gate!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) April 25, 2019
“Trump — and his surrogates, including those at Fox — showed they were willing to do anything and everything to get him elected in 2016,” Cillizza concluded. “These baseless hits on Biden’s health — more than a year before the election — suggest they’ll be following that same blueprint again.”
But it seems the CNN editor forgot that his own network discussed Trump’s health in great detail back in 2016, publishing almost every detail of a report by the president’s then-personal physician, Dr. Harold Bornstein.
Under a sub-headline called “Trump’s key stats,” CNN deemed Trump “overweight” and presented a long list of the then-Republican nominee’s medical statistics.
“At 6-foot-3 and 236 pounds, Trump has a body mass index of 29.5, which makes him overweight, according to the National Institutes of Health’s online BMI calculator. However, all of his test results were within normal range,” CNN reporter Jacqueline Howard wrote just two months before the 2016 election.
“Bornstein’s letter indicates that Trump has a cholesterol level of 169 and blood pressure of 116/70. His blood sugar level is 99 mg/dL, and his triglycerides, which are a type of fat found in your blood, are 61 mg/dL,” Howard added.
Now, Cillizza wasn’t hired by CNN until after Trump was elected president, meaning he couldn’t have been involved in that 2016 story.
Still, you just can’t have it both ways.
If Cillizza is going to criticize Fox hosts for speculating about a candidate’s health, then he should similarly criticize his current employer for speculating about Trump’s health.
The blatant “do as I say, not as I do” aspect of CNN’s reporting does not help the network look unbiased and objective.
Quite the opposite, in fact.
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