CNN anchor Anderson Cooper got into a heated dispute with Charlamagne Tha God over the media’s coverage of Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris during the radio personality’s appearance on the network Thursday night.
The bitter back-and-forth began when Charlamagne accused news stations, such as CNN, of failing to report on Trump’s “fascist” behavior and statements, while giving airtime to false conspiracies like whether Harris is black during his visit to Cooper’s show.
“It’s crazy because you still don’t have news networks having that conversation, like when somebody says, when somebody questions Kamala Harris’s blackness or is she a DEI hire, you all will have roundtable discussions about that, asking that question.
“How come we’re not having a roundtable discussion asking is Donald Trump a fascist? Actually not even asking, he’s stating it,” Charlamagne said. “How come that is not the topic of discussion on networks like CNN every day?”
“I talk about this every night,” Cooper retorted.
But Charlamagne didn’t back down on his “Trump is a fascist” line of questioning.
“I don’t think y’all have enough conversations about it,” the radio show host said. “I feel like I heard more on this network about ‘is Kamala Harris Black?’ than I do about Donald Trump being a fascist.”
“Honestly, that’s bulls—,” Cooper shot back. “I’m sorry. I’m a fan of yours, but to say that we‘re sitting around discussing ‘is Kamala Harris Black…”
“I’ve seen that. I’ve seen roundtable discussions a lot. Now that’s bulls—, Anderson,” Charlamagne cut the anchor off.
Cooper said he and other CNN anchors have never questioned the vice president’s race, though admitted the cable network may have had “nutty people” with “strongly held beliefs” on panels before in order to showcase a diverse range of opinions and “have a legitimate conversation.”
Charlamagne dropped the discussion of Harris but again lobbed the accusation that there is a lack of critical coverage of Trump in the news.
“I think no network has honest conversations about Donald Trump,” he said. “Nobody’s had an honest conversation about Donald Trump since 2016.
“I saw last night, they were talking about, you know, the double standard that exists between Donald Trump and the vice president, but it’s always a double standard with Trump, whether it’s Hillary, whether it’s, you know, against Biden. Now, with Kamala, we talk about him being a threat to democracy, but we don’t treat him like one.”
But Cooper stood by his coverage of the former president.
“I don’t know what you’ve been watching but, I don’t know if any Trump supporters out there or people who like him, who are tuning in to me every night to try to be validated in their opinions,” he said.
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“Let me just say there is nobody on the planet who has not heard and seen pretty much everything Donald Trump has said,” the CNN star added.
“I don’t believe that,” Charlamagne shot down. “When the vice president said that to you last night, and she said, ‘I don’t think enough people know,’ I 100% believe enough people have not heard his rhetoric.”
The radio show host has repeatedly called Trump a fascist and even got Harris to agree that it was OK to call the Republican nominee one during an interview with her.
The vice president held a brief press conference on Wednesday to call out accusations against Trump in an Atlantic article that painted him as a fascist and tyrant-in-waiting.
“In just the past week, Donald Trump has repeatedly called his fellow Americans the enemy from within, and even said that he would use the United States military to go after American citizens,” Harris said outside her Washington DC residence.
“Let’s be clear about who he considers to be the enemy from within. Anyone who refuses to bend a knee or dares to criticize him would qualify, in his mind, as the enemy within — like judges, like journalists, like non-partisan election officials.
“We know what Donald Trump wants. He wants unchecked power. The question in 13 days will be, what do the American people want?”
