GOP presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy joined CNN for a town hall earlier in the week, and now CNN’s own reporters have demanded that he never be allowed back on the channel.
Leading the anti-Vivek brigade of liberal commentators, Oliver Darcy, who once complained that news outlets covered Donald Trump speeches while he was in the White House, has long led efforts to “deplatform” conservatives.
Regarding Ramaswamy, a GOP candidate who recently dodged an assassination attempt, Darcy just did not like what he heard from the candidate and used that to call for censorship.
The Independent reports:
Mr Darcy, the network’s senior media reporter, made the comments in CNN’s Reliable Sources newsletter. He said the network was “helping to legitimize the dishonest GOP presidential hopeful who has spewed dangerous lies and injected poison into the national discourse at every chance.”
He pointed to Donald Trump’s massive lead in the GOP primary polling, and noted that Mr Ramaswamy is not even among the few Republicans who are polling at a distant second to the former president.
“The notion that the infotainer, who CNN has reported ‘struggles for relevance’ as he polls in the low single digits and remains exceedingly unlikely to be the Republican Party’s nominee, deserves an hour-long national platform to sell his personal brand and insidious talking points to the masses taxes the imagination.” he wrote.
He also noted that the network did not offer a similar town hall to independent candidate Robert F Kennedy, Jr, who is polling higher than Mr Ramaswamy.
It’s not surprising that such a partisan reporter would be upset after Vivek’s town hall. He slaughtered many leftwing sacred cows in the time that he was given.
For example, he took on the idea of “diversity, equity, and inclusion” and called for its end.
In the name of diversity, we’ve completely sacrificed true diversity of thought.
In the name of inclusion, we’ve created an exclusionary culture where certain views just aren’t welcome. pic.twitter.com/ldbl6ZjTR5
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 14, 2023
Another segment where Ramaswamy ruffled feathers and caused CNN to run a “fact check” after the show concluded involved the candidate expressing his view that there were FBI informants involved in the mobbing of the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Too bad for CNN, we’ll take the TRUTH on Jan. 6 mainstream. There is clear evidence that there was at the very least entrapment of peaceful protestors, similar to the fake Gretchen Whitmer kidnapping plot & countless other cases. The FBI won’t admit how many undercover officers… pic.twitter.com/SBuc6nnymg
— Vivek Ramaswamy (@VivekGRamaswamy) December 14, 2023
A CNN spokesperson defended the town hall, saying that Ramaswamy “is a significant candidate for the GOP nomination, having made every debate stage thus far.”
“The Iowa voters have questions for him before casting their ballots,” the spokesperson continued. “We will always work to hold every candidate accountable and provide voters with the information necessary to make informed decisions going into an election.”
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