CNN Panel Compares Ross’ Reported NOAA Threats to Putin, Kim Jong Un Cults of Personality: ‘Dear Leader’ Can Never Make a Mistake
On The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer, the CNN panel blasted the reported threats to NOAA officials made by Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, and compared his effort to expunge public corrections of President Donald Trump to the cults of personality surrounding authoritarian leaders like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un: “Dear Leader can never be seen to make a mistake.”
The conversation stemmed from an alarming New York Times story published on Monday afternoon that reported Ross made an urgent phone call to Neil Jacobs, NOAA’s acting administrator, to admonish the agency for publicly correcting Trump’s false claim that Hurricane Dorian would threaten Alabama. Per the Times, Ross then subsequently threatened to fire the agency’s political appointees, over the objections of Jacobs, if the situation was not “fixed.”
For its part, the Commerce Department strongly denies the allegations in a just released statement: “The New York Times story is false. Secretary Ross did not threaten to fire any NOAA staff over forecasting and public statements about Hurricane Dorian.”
“The job of a cabinet secretary is not to be the president’s personal censor,” said CNN national security analyst Samantha Vinograd. “If we can’t trust the weather [reports], if we can’t trust what’s coming out of the White House, President Trump is really taking a page from Putin here and spreading misinformation while engaging in censorship and no one knows what’s fact or fiction.”
CNN legal analyst Jeffery Toobin analogized Ross’s reported reputation management with another dictator.
“I disagree. I don’t think it’s Putin. I think it’s Kim Jong-un. I think this is a North Korean-style approach to government,” Toobin explained. “The ‘Dear Leader’ can never be seen to make a mistake. Decent, honorable federal employees, and I used to work for the federal government, so I feel for these people. They’re trying to do their job. They’re trying to protect the people of Alabama from wrong information that could lead to stampedes or lines at gas stations. Instead you have this authoritarian government trying to threaten their jobs because they’re contradicting the false statements of the president.”
Political analyst Gloria Borger then asked if anyone inside the White House prompted Ross to make his alleged threats.
“If Wilbur Ross did this, who told him to do it?” she wondered. “Did he just pick up the phone and say ‘I think I’ll call and scream at this guy and tell him his job is in danger?’ Or do you think, just maybe, he got a call from the White House or somebody very high up in the White House or somebody who works in the White House?”
“Everybody spins,” Borger added. “You don’t spin about people’s lives. You don’t do that. Don’t spin about things that could provide danger to American citizens.”
Watch the video above, via CNN.
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