NORMALIZATION(S): When CNN's Brown tried to push back...

THURSDAY, AUGUST 15, 2024

...Senator Graham evaded: Judged by any traditional norm, Candidate Trump made some startling claims when he appeared in St. Cloud. Let's set aside the silly claims about all the adulation:

TRUMP (7/27/24): By the way, I feel so bad. There are 25,000 people outside that cannot— 

[...]

We've always had the biggest crowds in history—there's never been anything like this. 

No, you ought to see. We drove from the airport to here, and practically the whole way there were just thousands and thousands of people. It's incredible, right? 

Almost always, there has "never been anything like it" when this candidate describes the many thousands of people who supposedly can't gain access to the venue at one of his events.  

In this case, the candidate added a claim about the "thousands and thousands of people" who had strewn flowers in his path during the eight-mile drive from the airport.

A few weeks later, this same candidate would claim that zero people had been present when Candidate Harris appeared at a rally in Detroit. But that would come a few weeks later. Let's return to the claims in St. Cloud.

We'll set aside the familiar claims about all the adulation. The candidate also made a set of claims in St. Cloud which, by any traditional reckoning, are about as serious as a candidate ever could make. 

By now, these claims are also extremely familiar! The candidate spoke to an enthusiastic crowd of just over 5,000 people. Angrily and remarkably, he told them such things as this:

TRUMP: We drove from the airport to here, and practically, the whole way, there were just thousands and thousands of people. It's incredible, right? 

[ROARING CROWD] 

It's incredible. If they don't cheat, we win this state easily, OK? They cheat.

They have no shame. They cheat. 

[WITH SUDDEN ANGER, POINTING AT PRESS CORPS] 

Do you understand that, you crooked people? 

They're the most crooked. 

They cheat. They cheated in the last election, and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're going to get them. 

"They" cheated in the last election, he said—and "they" are going to do so again. Later in his lengthy speech, he returned to this startling claim:

TRUMP: The radical left Democrats rigged the presidential election in 2020, and we're not going to allow them to rig the presidential election in 2024. We're not going to allow it to happen. 

And every time the radical left Democrats, Communists, Marxists and fascists indict me, I consider it a great badge of honor, because I'm being indicted for you.

[...]

I got indicted more than [Al Capone]—for what? Saying the election was crooked. 

The election was crooked.  What a disgrace...

Set aside the candidate's claim that he'd been indicted by Communists, Marxists and fascists. He said the last elected was crooked—he said it had been rigged—and he said the radical left Democrats were going to try it again.

Judged by any traditional norm. those are remarkable allegations. The go to the heart of the American system. As events of January 6 helped show, they're inflammatory all the way down.

Any time some such claim is accurate, the evidence should of course be brought forward. But you'd a think a candidate would be held to a very high standard when he keeps advancing claims of this type, as this candidate routinely does.

In the case of Candidate Trump, these claims have become so familiar that they've largely been "normalized." 

Major news orgs yawn when these claims are made. In this instance, CNN tried to push back.

For ourselves, we became aware of the claims from St. Cloud on Tuesday, July 30, three days after they were made.  Pamela Brown was guest-hosting CNN's The Situation Room. 

Brown is an experienced anchor. As she interviewed Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC), she played a brief excerpt of the candidate's claims:

BROWN (7/30/24): All right. I want to get your reaction to something Donald Trump just said about winning Minnesota in November—as you well know, something that a Republican has not done since 1972. Let's listen:

TRUMP (videotape): If they don't cheat, we win this state easily, okay? They cheat. They have no shame. They cheat. Do you understand that, you crooked people? They're the most crooked. They cheat. They cheated in the last election and they're going to cheat in this election, but we're going to get them.

BROWN: Election fraud lies are not harmless. We all saw what happened on January 6th. You were right there in the thick of it. Can you publicly call for Trump to stop spreading these baseless lies?

"Election fraud lies are not harmless," Brown said. In doing so, she moved directly to the use of a term we generally think of as counterproductive.

That said, she had played part of the candidate's claims in St. Cloud, and she'd asked Graham to comment. She wanted to know if Graham would tell Candidate Trump "to stop spreading these baseless lies."

Already, several separate questions had been folded into one. For better or worse, in familiar fashion, here's what the senator said:

GRAHAM (continuing directly): Well, I voted to certify the election because I believe that they—whatever irregularities there were in 2020, they didn't change the outcome. 

So here's my advice to President Trump, for whatever it's worth. If you compare what you did as president to what Biden and Harris has done on their watch, you will win.

By inference—but only by inference—the solon said that the last election actually hadn't been stolen. That said, he hadn't spoken directly, one way or the other, to Brown's request. 

Brown decided to try it again. Here's the reply she received::

BROWN (continuing directly): But do you call on him to stop setting the stage about the upcoming election and saying that they're going to cheat if I lose Minnesota, something a Republican has not—

GRAHAM: Well, I'll leave it up to him how to figure this out. I think he can win Minnesota.

Basically, that was a "No," but the answer still wasn't clear. Brown pressed forward again:

BROWN (continuing directly): OK. But the bottom line is, he is telling his audience, "If I lose this state, which a Republican has not won since 1972, it's because of cheating."

Do you call on him to stop that kind of rhetoric ahead of the election, given what we saw in the last election?

GRAHAM: I think the better argument to make is that people in Minnesota are suffering from high gas prices and high food prices and a broken border affects even Minnesota. That's what I would talk about.

The senator was now sidestepping Brown's question altogether. Brown gave it one additional try, after which she threw in the towel:

BROWN (continuing directly): Right. But, overall, he talks about—he's already laying the groundwork, saying this election will be stolen from you, there will be cheating if I lose.

Are you concerned by that?

GRAHAM: Not particularly, because I think Donald Trump is trying to reinforce to the American people that our election system needs to be reformed and needs to be fixed, and there's some truth to that. But my point is that he's got a chance here to right the ship.

And the best way to right the ship is talk about things that people are living in their daily lives, high food prices, filling the car versus buying groceries, a fear of your personal safety in certain parts of this country, a world that seems to be completely on fire, a liberal agenda that's not working out for the average person in Minnesota. That's what I would talk about if I were him.

BROWN: All right. Senator Lindsey Graham, thank you.

"Are you concerned" by the candidate's claims, she asked. More specifically, is Graham concerned by an inflammatory set of claims—a set of claims he seems to think are unsupported by the facts?

"Not particularly," the solon said—after which he filibustered, running out the clock. Along the way, he said he was able to find "some truth" in the inflammatory things Trump said.

"Thank you, Senator Graham," Brown said. Thanks for nothing, she might have added.

As we watched this exchange, we thought we saw several familiar phenomena being played out. On the one hand, we thought we saw a familiar skill enacted by the politician.

We thought we saw him refusing to answer a reasonably direct question. We thought we saw a familiar skill at running out the clock.

That said, also this: 

We thought we saw a somewhat familiar lack of skill on the part of the CNN journalist. 

To her credit, she had raised the question of a very unusual type of claim on the part of a former president. 

Despite their inflammatory nature, such claims have become so familiar on the part of this candidate that they've largely been normalized. Major journalists rarely notice, question or challenge such remarkable claims at this point.

Pamela Brown played a bit of the tape, and then she challenged the conduct. That said, how skillful were her questions for the solon sitting before her?

To her credit, she tried to react. Tomorrow, we'll take it from here.

Tomorrow: The road not taken with Senator Graham. Also, the normalization of this same candidate's patently crazy behaviors