Brian Stelter Asks if 'Normal Relations Between Prez and Press Corps' Will Be Restored, Jokes Write Themselves

As my colleagues and I have documented extensively, the cast of characters at CNN have not exactly covered themselves in glory in the aftermath of last week’s elections.

“The Lead” host Jake Tapper has endorsed the idea of an “Enemies List” of sorts that targets Trump officials and rank and file Trump supporters alike for shunning and ostracization from polite society. His colleagues Anderson Cooper and Jim Acosta have taken to calling President Trump an “obese turtle” and “sore loser”, respectively.

Anchor Don Lemon has boasted about dropping his Trump-supporting friends. Media correspondent Brian Stelter bravely and boldly pulled his phone out during his Sunday “Reliable Sources” broadcast and declared he was turning off Twitter notifications for Trump’s tweets in solidarity with his CNN co-worker Abby Phillip and ABC News’ Jon Karl. He’s also taken to comparing people who have questions and concerns about the election results to “birthers” and “truthers.”

The latest example of how CNN is preparing to morph into full-blown state-run TV in the event of a Biden-Harris victory also comes by way of Mr. Stelter.

Stelter interviewed the Biden-Harris campaign’s national press secretary TJ Ducklo on Sunday where the “role of the fourth estate” was discussed, among other things. Here’s how Stelter ~~gushed about~~ reported on what Ducklo had to say:

…I was struck by his statements about the role of the fourth estate. He said things like “the media has an incredibly important job to do” — words that would be uncontroversial at practically any other time in American history, but are newly important now, after four years of venomous attacks against the media by the commander in chief.

“President-elect Biden believes that the media is a critical piece of our democracy; that transparency is incredibly important,” Ducklo said. “You’ll remember we opened all of our fundraisers this campaign, opened to press so that folks could see what was going on and what was being said.”

Ducklo said Biden also believes “that the media’s job is to hold him accountable. He is there to do the people’s work. And, you know, he welcomes that relationship. He welcomes their role, the media’s role in our democracy. And I think it will be, frankly, the polar opposite what we have seen the last four years.” A reset is about to begin…

Coming soon: A restoration of normal relations between the president and the press corps?https://t.co/XWPKjLlbsN

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) November 9, 2020

The discerning reader will note that the piece sounded like something you’d see straight out of a political campaign. “I was struck by his statements …” and “a reset is about to begin.” What garbage.

In reality, the only “reset” that will happen on this front in the event of a Biden victory is in how the mainstream media would treat Biden versus how they did Trump. Gone will be treating a president like he’s illegitimate. Gone will be the 24-7 fake news “bombshells” that are going to “spell doom for this presidency.” Gone will be the routine hostility shown towards administration officials during interviews.

Instead, business as usual will be resumed between CNN “reporters” and the White House. It’ll be more of what we saw during the Obama-Biden administration, the fawning, the cooing, the ooohing and aahing. And much pillow-plumping.

So in a sense, Stelter was right about one thing: “Normal relations” would indeed be restored between the media and the president under a Biden administration … the type of “relations” one typically sees between, well, I don’t want to get too graphic here, but I think you get the point.