On Monday, the moment Donald Trump took office, the CBP One app was taken offline. I'll spare you the details as to what it was touted by the Biden administration as in this article, because it was all a load of crap anyway, and simply say that this app effectively allowed for illegal aliens to run amok inside the U.S. under the excuse that they were "asylum seekers."
The moment the app went offline, a Washington Post reporter just so happened to be at the border to catch a woman devolve into a dramatic display of grief and loss. As I covered on Monday, WaPo really laid it on thick, and painted the Trump administration as cruel and heartless without using those words exactly.
Woman really turns on the waterworks for the cameras as her CBP One app appointment is canceled as Trump takes office. They really need better actors. pic.twitter.com/A6doqibwot
— Brandon Morse (@TheBrandonMorse) January 20, 2025
However, even if the Washington Post wasn't going to say that about Trump, you know there were CNN contributors who were more than ready to, and sure enough, Maria Cardona did exactly that.
Sitting on a panel with Scott Jennings, Cardona launched into a tirade about how Trump is only concerned with "inflicting as much pain as possible in communities across the country."
And I thought the crying woman in the WaPo video was dramatic.
Jennings, true to form, noted that Trump did say we were going to have a legal immigration system where the U.S. knows who is coming in and judges whether they're a benefit to our country, instead of the chaos of the Biden administration. Jennings openly disagreed with Cardona's assessment, saying that the pain being inflicted has already been done to the country itself, bringing up Laken Riley as an example.
"We have to have a legal immigration system, and it has to benefit the United States," said Jennings. "The current system is of no benefit to the United States in the way that it has been administered in the last four years."
This didn't phase Cardona, who buckled down that all Trump is after is "cruelty, division, and pain, because that is what his base wants."
Immigration debate on @cnn: Trump was elected to bring order to chaos, to secure the border, and to build a system that BENEFITS the US. His views on deportations are not particularly controversial, either. pic.twitter.com/jaZqW7xOcU
— Scott Jennings (@ScottJenningsKY) January 21, 2025
And people wonder why the legacy media is dying.
But useful idiots are useful, even to the opposition. Given both WaPo and Cardona's avenues of attack, we can get a pretty good glimpse into where the media's mind is at. The angle will be to paint the Trump administration as "cruel."
That will be the key word, and I'll bet my bottom dollar you're going to hear that word repeated over and over again in the coming months. It will be spoken by everyone from the Democrats in Washington to the talking heads on CNN and MSNBC. You'll hear the word said from activists, Hollywood denizens, and the usage of the word will skyrocket on social media.
This will have a dual effect, if they can succeed. For one, it will paint the Trump administration as something that doesn't care about the downtrodden and needy, which will allow the left to play class warfare strategies, eventually turning the common man against the administration.
It will also allow many who voted for Trump to feel guilt that they allowed this kind of evil to prosper, causing something of a pendulum swing in the heart. This can often trigger swift turns that result in outward action as well. Nothing drives a leftist quite like guilt, except spite, which that guilt will cultivate.
The goal is ultimately to make Trump look out of touch and heartless, like a robber baron of old.
What's also great about this strategy is that it's modular. Today it's about immigrants, and tomorrow it will be about other umbrella groups like the LGBT community or women.
The question is, will that succeed?
A lot of things would have to happen for that narrative to thrive, including many of the influencers who helped Trump get elected (Joe Rogan for instance) to completely abandon the truth and run with the narrative. Moreover, the free speech platform that is X would have to become restrictive again. Trump would also have to display very real cruelty.
So, in other words, probably not. The narrative may find its legs in leftist circles, but it will only circulate because they will convince themselves it's true, not because it is true. This alone will cause many people to reject the narrative as the left buckles down on it in spite of evidence to the contrary.
Still, it's not wise to underestimate the left's ability to generate narratives and get the out and about to the uninformed. Most people in America still don't pay close enough attention to understand when a narrative is a lie. Leftist claims like these keep failing because people are calling it out quickly, and the in the open, but this requires work and information dissemination.
In short: Keep fighting. Trump won, but this battle is just getting started.
