“The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”
Human nature has not changed since the early 17th century, when William Shakespeare put those iconic words into the mouth of Prince Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude.
In modern English, of course, they mean something like this: The more overwrought your denial of guilt, the more self-serving you appear and the more you raise suspicions about your truthfulness and motives.
In this sense, Gertrude might help us understand CNN’s response to criticism of both Kasie Hunt, host of “CNN This Morning,” and Jake Tapper, the longtime establishment shill scheduled to serve as one of two moderators at Thursday’s first presidential debate in Atlanta, hosted by CNN.
The Shakespearean drama began Monday, when Karoline Leavitt, press secretary for former President Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign, appeared on “This Morning.”
When Leavitt pointed to Tapper’s lengthy history of anti-Trump behavior, Hunt feigned outrage and then ended the interview by cutting off Leavitt’s microphone.
“We’re going to stop this interview.” Trump spokesperson Karoline Leavitt goes on CNN and keeps attacking CNN debate moderators Jake Tapper and Dana Bash. Anchor Kasie Hunt gets fed up and dumps Leavitt from the air. pic.twitter.com/09gDp0Ymjy
— Mike Sington (@MikeSington) June 24, 2024
Trump supporters had good reason to interpret that exchange as a preview of the treatment the presumptive GOP nominee might expect from that hostile network during the debate, one feature of which is the muting of microphones.
Should CNN be allowed to host a debate?
Tapper, of course, has a lengthy history of acute Trump Derangement Syndrome.
Earlier this year, for instance, the CNN host tried to repeat the lie that Trump engaged in an “insurrection.” In his eagerness to get that word out of his mouth, however, Tapper actually misspoke and said something similar-sounding but much more embarrassing to him.
In January, as Trump denounced President Joe Biden’s border invasion in a speech following the former president’s victory in the Iowa caucus, Tapper interrupted CNN’s broadcast of the speech to accuse Trump of “repeating his anti-immigrant rhetoric.”
In May 2023, a studio audience’s favorable reaction to Trump during a CNN town hall left Tapper triggered. So did the response the former president received one month later at a Cuban restaurant in Miami following his indictment on charges so obviously motivated by politics and malice that many people have probably forgotten the details by now.
Then there was Tapper’s reaction to the declared results of the 2020 presidential election.
“It must be said, to paraphrase President Ford: For tens of millions of our fellow Americans, their long national nightmare is over,” Tapper said on Nov. 7, 2020.
Instead of acknowledging that their moderator has a lengthy history of anti-Trump bias, CNN did what guilty parties do.
First, Hunt censored Leavitt and defended herself in a post on X, saying, “You come on my show, you respect my colleagues. Period. I don’t care what side of the aisle you stand on, as my track record clearly shows.”
You come on my show, you respect my colleagues. Period. I don’t care what side of the aisle you stand on, as my track record clearly shows.
— Kasie Hunt (@kasie) June 24, 2024
Then, the network issued a statement that ignored legitimate concerns about Tapper and co-moderator Dana Bash.
In short, rather than admit to what everyone can see — that at least one of their moderators has an obvious problem with Trump Derangement Syndrome — CNN shamed everyone else for noticing.
“Jake Tapper and Dana Bash are well respected veteran journalists who have covered politics for more than five decades combined,” the CNN statement began, according to The Hill.
“They have extensive experience moderating major political debates, including CNN’s Republican Presidential Primary Debate this cycle. There are no two people better equipped to co-moderate a substantial and fact-based discussion and we look forward to the debate on June 27 in Atlanta,” the network said.
If we use the Gertrude-Hamlet method to translate that statement, we might get something like the following:
“No one admires Tapper and Bash more than their fellow establishment shills, who also confuse journalism with political advocacy. In fact, the pair have expertly gaslit viewers for longer than anyone can remember. Thus, we can think of no two people better equipped to help us rig the proceedings against Trump.”
In other words, Hunt and the rest of the folks at CNN doth protest too much.
