Hunter Biden and CNN's Chris Licht: You vote on who is this week's winner and loser
Hunter Biden and CNN's Chris Licht: You vote on who is this week's winner and loser
Hunter Biden's cocaine gun case: Will he win on Second Amendment rights or lose for exposing Joe Biden overseas deals? CNN's Chris Licht: Did he lose to Donald Trump or win over Republican viewers?
This week's nominees for the winner and loser are not clear-cut, so I'm leaving it up to you to decide by participating in polls. I’ve given you two newsworthy individuals— the CEO of CNN and the president's son— along with the reasons why they deserve victory or defeat. Read through my analysis and then vote in the polls below who you think is this week’s winner and loser. Let’s go…
CNN’s Chris Licht
Losing: Everyone in TV news and politics is reading and talking about this scathing and fascinating “Atlantic” profile of Chris Litcht, the CEO of CNN. (As a writer who relies on paying subscribers for my work, I won't link to it behind the paywall, but I admit to reading it that way.)
Licht was hired by the Warner Bros. CEO David Zaslav to move CNN out of the far left in order to fix its low ratings and credibility issues. He was tasked to reshape the network because, as writer Tim Alberta noted, CNN’s “hostile approach” to Donald Trump had ”alienated a broader viewership that craved sober, fact-driven coverage.”
Alberta used his exclusive, one-on-one access to Licht for months to reveal how the news exec is losing a “two-front war” to “win back Republicans who had written off the network while also fighting to win over his own journalists.” While over 100 CNN employees talked to Alberta to trash Licht, Zaslav repeatedly canceled interviews to say anything in support.
The media establishment consensus is Licht won’t last long in his job after this expose. Even Licht struggled to make a convincing case for being portrayed positively in the article.
Furthermore, CNN’s ratings keep tanking under Licht’s leadership. It seems the viewers picked up during the network’s obsessive hatred coverage of Trump don’t want balanced reporting. The network’s ratings are hitting the lowest since 2015 — far behind MSNBC and Fox News.
Plus, even after all this, there are still no conservative voices on the air or behind the scenes at CNN to provide genuine balance.
Inside scoop: According to the article, Licht went to Capitol Hill to meet with Republican leaders and promised them “a fair shake under his leadership.” This wasn’t the first time a CNN CEO did this, which I’ve seen firsthand. I tell the story below for paying subscribers about when the House Majority Whip organized a Republican boycott of CNN.
Winning: Licht made a bold move by demanding that CNN “platform” former Pres. Donald Trump in a town hall. Licht pushed to have Trump on the network for the first time since 2016 for the seemingly simple journalistic principle of hearing from all sides. Trump performed well and came across in a positive light (my winner that week) which infuriated CNN staff.
Licht criticized the network under his predecessor Jeff Zucker for fearmongering about COVID for ratings, refusing to report on the Wuhan lab leak possibility and reporting public health COVID guidance without question.
Outkick’s Clay Travis tweeted that he didn’t expect to agree with what he read that Licht said:
I agree with these Licht quotes. They’re getting almost no play. He RIPS Zucker’s covid coverage at CNN. Second clip, he argues for diversity of thought over cosmetic diversity. That’s exactly right too. Third, he rips the covid death count tally as an important example of a real debate that should be allowed.
Also, Licht said he’s pushing the CNN on-air elite to get in line with common sense on transgender issues:
…this is where words matter. You immediately force some people to tune out when you use, like, “person capable of giving birth.” People tune out and you lose that trust. He took another pause. “Do not virtue signal. Tell the truth.
Is Licht the winner or loser? Click below to vote:
Hunter Biden
Winning: Hunter is poised to be the most unlikely champion of Second Amendment rights and stands in opposition to his father’s gun-control agenda.
Hunter’s legal team leaked to Politico this week that the Pres. Joe Biden’s son intends to use the conservative and pro-gun Supreme Court ruling as a defense if he’s prosecuted for possessing a gun while being a drug addict.
The Justice Department has been investigating if Hunter committed a felony by lying on the federal gun background check form that he was not a drug abuser.
My friend Tara Palmeri of Puck News first reported exclusively that Hunter bought a gun in 2018 and checked off the box on the ATF 4773 form that he did not use drugs. Later, Hunter wrote in his book that he was “smoking crack every 15 minutes” in the time frame he bought the gun. He had already been kicked out of the Navy reserves for testing positive for coke.
Hunter is planning on using the June 2022 Supreme Court ruling in New York State Rifle & Pistol Association v Bruen that says all Second Amendment restrictions must have a similar law in effect at the time of the nation’s founding.
The 1968 Gun Control Act prohibits possession of a firearm within 12 months of using drugs. Hunter would argue that the law is unconstitutional because there was nothing similar in the 1700s.
If Hunter is able to find a judge to agree with him based on Bruen, it will drastically loosen gun-control laws at the same time that his father is calling for stricter bans.
The son is up against his father who said the Bruen decision “contradicts both common sense and the Constitution, and should deeply trouble us all.” Joe encouraged states to write new gun-control laws in opposition to the Supreme Court decision.
Losing: The Daily Mail revealed texts sent to Hunter from his uncle that suggest Joe was directly involved in their corrupt overseas deals with a Chinese energy firm. Joe’s brother Jim texted Hunter:
This can work, you need a safe harbor. I can work with you father alone !! We as usual just need several months of his help to make this work.
Pres. Biden has repeatedly said he had nothing to do with these deals when he was vice president. But Hunter continues to be the link to all the federal and congressional investigations into his father’s potential corruption from money-making schemes.