CNN’s Dana Bash Slaps Back At Attacks On Her Trump ‘Different Tone’ Remark: ‘Cancel Culture BS Has Got To Stop’

Tommy ChristopherJan 8th, 2021, 8:56 am
 

CNN correspondent Dana Bash responded to a flood of criticism that followed her observation that President Donald Trump showed “a very different tone” in the quasi-concession video he posted on Thursday night.

The familiar media analysis of Trump’s “tone” has become highly triggering for an audience that has watched news personalities time and again predict a “pivot” that never actually happens, and that dynamic worked against Bash when she delivered her reaction seconds after Trump posted his video.

Critics on Twitter seized on her opener, in which she noted “Well, it is obviously a very different tone” from Trump. The raw nerve was struck, and a flood of Bash-bashing ensued. Here’s just a tiny sample, but there was a lot:

But it was Democratic strategist Adam Parkhomenko who drew CNN communications chief Matt Dornic into the fray by tweeting “Dana Bash went back to talking about Trump’s new tone. I wish I was joking. I wish I was joking.”

Dornic leapt to Bash’s defense in a series of exchanges.

In short order, Bash issued responses of her own.

“Hey @AdamParkhomenko – I almost never respond such things – but your attack on me tonight was totally out of bounds and out of context. What the president said was different. I didn’t defend it. I explained it. With reporting. I also called out his lies in the video,” Bash wrote, and added “These times are hard enough. Engaging in cancel culture B.S. has got to stop – especially when it comes to journalists putting facts first. Enough.”

Parkhomenko countered with “Dana, this has been a pattern for you. Have you not praised the president’s ‘new tone’ before? Did you not say he had a ‘different tone’ today?”

“This is my last response to you : That was not praise. It was stating a fact. And then giving context to that fact. But given that you’re stirring people up without context means you wouldn’t understand what that means,” Bash replied.

So who’s right? Here are the facts, for readers to judge. Bash is correct, after her observation, she went on to call out Trump’s claim to have called im the National Guard as a “total lie,” and additionally expressed overt skepticism about the content of his message, noting that it was delivered under duress and the threat of mass resignations.

“Yes, he for the first time accepted the reality that there will be a new president, claimed that he wants a peaceful transition because he was begged to do that after the violence that took lives, violence that he incited,” she said.

Later in the segment, Bash slammed Trump by saying “We’ve seen so many times the president go up to the line and then pull back. He crossed the line. He stomped on the line. He desecrated the line. And that is the reason why we have seen so many people come out, from John Kelly to Barr to people who had to resign or felt the need to resign currently from his administration. That is the big difference.”

“And you know, he is finally seeing some form of the light, but is obviously too little too late when it comes to his legacy,” she added, likely a smidge too credulously for some.

But for additional context, Bash also took criticism — and a gentle on-air rebuke — for another comment earlier Thursday in which she gave Trump too much benefit of the doubt from anchor John King.

Discussing Trump’s speech prior to the attack, Bash said that “The most important question now is the culpability of Trump and the fact he went to that rally and called for incited violence. Maybe he didn’t realize he was doing it, maybe he did, but he did it.”

“But he doesn’t get that, I’m sorry,” King said. “In the first week of the Trump presidency, maybe a guy who’d never held office, you’d say he doesn’t realize what he’s saying. That’s over. That is over. That is long over. He has been president for 4 years. He has supported conspiracy theorists, he has lied repeatedly, he is lying repeatedly still about the election.”

“He did it, and that’s all that matters,” Bash said.

In the first instance, though, Bash did explicitly express skepticism and described the duress that likely influenced Trump’s video. But the question going forward for political journalists is whether superficialities like “tone” and “optics” are worth mentioning in the first place to news consumers hungry for substance and genuine insight.

Watch the exchange in question above via CNN.

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