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Join Telegram ChannelCNN host Michael Smerconish admitted that the mainstream media's “constant bullying” of conservatives backfired and contributed to President-elect Trump's big victory last week.
In an interview with Aidan McLaughlin, Editor-in-Chief of Mediaite.com, on the “Press Club” podcast, the CNN pundit said voters rebelled against the media's constant demonization of people who support the president-elect.
“It's like a lesson in parenting. The more you tell people what they can't do, what's intolerable, you shouldn't do this, you shouldn't do that, the more they're going to rebel.” he declared.
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CNN host Michael Smerconish said he feels the media's “constant intimidation” of Trump supporters will backfire on the Democratic Party in the 2024 election. (Slave Vlasic / Stringer)
McLaughlin asked Smerconish what he thought was the main takeaway from the 2024 presidential election. The CNN host began by admitting, “I had to think about it a lot” and said that the way the media being authoritarian towards Trump, seen as a threat to the country, was “at the top of my list”.
He wondered if, perhaps, if people had been left to make their own decision about Trump without the media telling them how to vote, “they would have come to their own conclusion and rejected Donald Trump.”
“But I think the constant intimidation and the combination of media influence and the four indictments, one conviction, and the broadcast of, you know, that horrible joke from Madison Square Garden a week before the election on repeat – and I felt it and I said it,” he told his host Mediaite.
Smerconish was referring to the controversial anti-Puerto Rican joke made by roast comedian and Trump supporter Tony Hinchcliffe at Trump's New York rally last month, in which he called the U.S. territory a “floating island of garbage”.
Media outlets called the joke a huge insult to the Puerto Rican community, coming from the Trump campaign just days before the election.
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U.S. President-elect Donald Trump attends the America First Policy Institute Gala held at Mar-a-Lago on November 14, 2024 in Palm Beach, Florida. Trump has announced a number of nominees to fill out his next administration. (Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images) (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
President Biden then made the moment even more controversial for the Democratic Party when he appeared to call Trump supporters “trash” in response to the joke, a soundbite that the Trump campaign used to its own advantage.
Smerconish noted that he made no predictions about Trump winning in the run-up to the election, but said the media's relentless criticism of Trump made him feel like it could backfire. him.
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“I can't sit here, Aiden, and tell you, well, that's how I called the election, but I really felt the potential for a boomerang effect, and I think it's is truly achieved.”
Last August, Smerconish said Friday that Trump held a significant political advantage over Vice President Harris.
“So the question is whether the race will be about personality. If so, he loses,” Smerconish said of Trump, adding that Trump, however, “probably wins” in the political battle with Harris.
Bill Maher, another liberal pundit, recently explained the reason he thinks Vice President Kamala Harris lost to Trump: that the Democratic Party is too radical. “You're wearing 'Queers for Palestine' t-shirts and masks two years after the pandemic ended. And you can't define a woman. I mean 'a person who menstruates,'” he said. he said Friday during the episode of “Real Time with Bill Maher.” “.
He added: “You are the education party of the teachers union and you have turned schools and colleges into a joke. You just lost a crazy contest to a truly crazy person.”
– Jeffrey Clark of Fox News contributed to this report.
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