Keilar Go, Ruffalo Smash, McCarthy Schism | Winners & Losers in Today’s Green Room

CNN anchor Brianna Keilar conducted an intense grilling of Dr. Deborah Birx over her failure to speak out against then-President Donald Trump’s Covid misinformation, her praise of Trump’s analytical skills, and other issues.

On Wednesday morning’s edition of CNN’s New Day, Keilar interviewed Birx, who was a member of Trump’s Covid team perhaps best known for her reaction to Trump’s recommendation that people try taking disinfectants internally to treat Covid. Birx is promoting a new book.

During the nearly 12-minute interview, Keilar persistently confronted Birx over elements of her tenure in Trump’s White House, first by playing a brutal montage of Trump saying he was definitely trying to make the U.S. do less testing.

She told Keilar “that was what was difficult in this White House because things are being said and we were doing the opposite.”

Keilar keyed in on the passive phrases, and said, “you talk about what you’re doing privately, but that flies in the face against what he is saying very publicly.” And when Birx said she lost access to national media, Keilar pressed her on that.

Keilar confronted Birx over her “fawning” praise of Trump early in the pandemic, repeatedly rebuffing any effort to reframe or recast that commentary.

It was a very strong interview and Keilar skillfully kept the discussion on topic, with newsworthy results. It’s well worth watching for a whole host of reasons. Nicely done.

President Joe Biden’s polling may be consistently slipping amid numerous national crises, but some say those hardships are a golden opportunity on fronts like climate change, including climate activist, podcaster, and Avengers star Mark Ruffalo.

Ruffalo joined Katy Tur Reports on Tuesday along with Kevin Johnson, the Board Director for the Environmental Defense Fund, and the two pushed for the Biden administration to do more to move the U.S. to a completely clean energy future.

Toward the end of the segment, Ruffalo took his comments a step further, arguing that the war in Ukraine and record high gas prices are a “gift” for Biden.

“This is a moment for President Biden to take our momentum, people’s fear, their disgust with the war, their disgust with energy prices, and use that to solidify a message to the American people that now is the time to transition,” Ruffalo said. “This is where the jobs are. This is where national security is. And we are going to keep pushing him to do it.”

“This is a gift to the president, as we see it,” said Ruffalo of those hardships and horrors, “and we see him accepting it.”

White House officials, too, have noted that high gas prices represent an opportunity for new messaging on the topic of energy.

But calling the crushing weight of high prices on America’s lower and middle classes a “gift” smacks of out-of-touch elitism. Add in painting the horrors of Russia’s invasion as a boon to green politics and the result is tone-deaf to the point of absurd.