(DCNF)—Historian Allan Lichtman on Monday criticized CNN and the media by claiming the media helped former President Donald Trump’s election prospects by only focusing on President Joe Biden after his poor debate performance on Thursday.
Biden, during the debate, talked with a raspy voice and trailed off while speaking, leading to worries regarding his age and fitness for another presidential term. Lichtman on “CNN News Central” said CNN and the media are playing a role “in Donald Trump gaslighting his way to the presidency and threatening our democracy” by disregarding the former president through paying more attention to Biden’s debate performance than Trump’s.
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“I love you guys in the media, but I have to say you are complicit in Donald Trump lying and conning his way to the presidency,” Lichtman said. “All the attention has been on Biden’s faltering debate. But Donald Trump’s debate was vastly worse. It was based entirely on lies. More than 30 significant lies. That’s one lie for about every one minute and 20 and 30 seconds. He threatened our democracy by saying he wouldn’t accept necessarily the results of a fair election.”
“He said he would seek retribution. Why wasn’t that the headline? Why wasn’t that the greatest concern from the debate rather than all the focus on Joe Biden?” he continued. “There’s an old saying: ‘It’s not just the evil people who wreak havoc on the world. It’s the good people who don’t do enough to stop them.’ And the media right now is complicit in Donald Trump gaslighting his way to the presidency and threatening our democracy.”
Several media outlets, including The New York Times, called for Biden to withdraw from the 2024 presidential race after the debate. Attempts to replace Biden with another Democratic candidate would likely face practical, political and even legal obstacles.
Democratic Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz’s asserted on Monday that it is just “elites” who are worrying about Biden’s debate performance, but CNN host John Berman pushed back.
“I just don’t think that’s true, congresswoman … I just think that anyone who was anywhere this weekend, talking to anybody, the subject of discussion was the debate and was President Biden’s performance. I don’t think that that discussion is only members of Congress,” Berman said.