Many news anchors in the United States do a terrible job obscuring their true partisan biases. But CNN’s Chief International Anchor Christiane Amanpour does not even try.
The supposed straight newswoman asked former FBI Director James Comey in a recent interview whether federal law enforcement officials should have done more during the 2016 election to punish Donald Trump and his supporters for chanting “lock her up!” about Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Of course, ‘lock her up!’ was a feature of the 2016 Trump campaign,” Amanpour said toward the conclusion of her interview with Comey.
She added, “Do you, in retrospect, wish that people like yourself, the head of the FBI, I mean the people in charge of law and order had shut down that language — that it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it’s kind of hate speech — should that have been allowed?”
Whoa! The former FBI director politely shrugged off her suggestion that the federal government should arrest people for saying things that upset Christiane Amanpour.
“That’s not a role for government to play,” Comey said.
He added, “The beauty of this country is people can say what they want even if it’s misleading and it’s demagoguery. The people who should have shut it down were Republicans who understand the rule of law and the values that they stand for. Shame on them, but it wasn’t a role for government to play.”
Christiane Amanpour asks James Comey if the phrase “lock her up” should have been “shut down” by people like him in 2016.
She asks if he thinks “it was dangerous potentially, that it could have created violence, that it’s kind of hate speech? Should that have been allowed?” pic.twitter.com/S3Gv0V0e1M
— Eddie Zipperer (@EddieZipperer) April 2, 2019
Though some have expressed shock that Amanpour would advocate an authoritarian crackdown on free speech, I cannot say I am entirely surprised that she would propose such a thing, especially on behalf of a Democratic politician.
She often plays the role of the arbiter of the moral good, routinely dipping into personal political commentary from her perch as an alleged news anchor. Recall that Amanpour accused Britons of xenophobia and anti-immigrant views in 2016 after they voted to leave the European Union. She made that specific claim no fewer than five times during a single broadcast immediately following the Brexit vote. Later, Amanpour berated one of the Brexit leaders, European Parliament member and Washington Examiner contributor Daniel Hannan, during a post-vote interview, claiming repeatedly, without evidence and falsely, that Hannan was now backtracking after campaigning to “stop the free movement [of people].”
Of course, you could just say she’s a tough news lady, but the problem is that Amanpour is not always so confrontational an interviewer. Let us not forget when she interviewed Hillary Clinton in May 2017, tossing the two-time failed presidential candidate the softest softballs ever lobbed, including when the CNN anchor asked:
The Trump administration is not without its upsides, Amanpour said later that same month. Indeed, she explained, it has caused “a huge rise in necessary activism” to combat what she characterizes as a “grave and existential threat.”
“You know, everybody was getting a little lazy, everyone was taking everything for granted, particularly in the United States. And I think women of have come out, you know, black people have come out. The press have come out,” she said. “Everybody is coming out to defend their profession and their right to exist under the Constitution and the laws of the United States.”
You’ll pardon me, then, for not being even a little surprised to learn Amanpour is maybe a little sympathetic to arresting opponents of the Democratic Party for so-called “hate speech.”
