Former CNN political analyst Eliana Johnson derided the liberal network over its sudden and rapid transmutation during the Trump era, saying they are now “unabashedly left-wing,” and they abhor “intelligent counterarguments” on the air.

Appearing on Tuesday’s installment of the “Ruthless” podcast, Johnson began by saying “the mask kinda dropped” at CNN after Donald Trump was elected, and any notion of “plausible deniability” in their left-wing biases was no longer defensible given their ceaseless “hostility” towards Trump.

“Coverage became more political, more partisan and that the mainstream makes fewer efforts, I think, to conceal where it’s coming from,” Johnson said. “If you look at CNN right now, like that is a left-wing television network. And I don’t think you would have said the same thing in 2006… but it is an unabashedly left-wing network. It makes no effort to include, like, intelligent counterarguments really on the air.”

Now the editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, Johnson was released by CNN in 2019 after it was announced she was leaving Politico as a White House reporter to join the Beacon.

“We signed her because, as [BuzzFeed] put it, ‘she was a top White House reporter’ who was ‘breaking significant news.’ She’s now pursuing a different career path and off that beat. Simple as that,” CNN spokesperson Matt Dornic said at the time. Buzzfeed suggested that CNN let her go because she was joining a conservative outlet.

Johnson told BuzzFeed News, “CNN has a right to tap or drop contributors at any point… none of us is entitled to a contract renewal.”

“Ruthless” co-host Michael Duncan then read a quote from CNN’s weekend dunce-in-chief Brian Stelter, who asked on his ironically-named Sunday show, “Reliable Sources”:

“Why aren’t there massive American newsrooms dedicated to journalism from a conservative point of view, a reality-based conservative point of view? Why isn’t there a New York Times of the right? Why doesn’t that exist?”

“Before I answer that question, Michael, I think it’s really interesting that Brian Stelter himself is an embodiment of what has happened to the media,” Johnson responded. “I followed him really closely when he was writing at The New York Times doing fantastic reporting about what was happening on the ‘Today’ show at NBC News. I read his book on the wars between the morning shows… He was fantastic. Now he’s like, a partisan corporate flack in the guise of a reporter over at CNN covering- he covers right-wing media. That is what he does.”

Aside, Stelter recently had his lunch eaten by former New York Times journalist Bari Weiss on the topic of wokeism after he tried to gaslight his audience, as is his wont.

Johnson said the Free Beacon is not necessarily a “partisan” outlet, but rather an “ideological media outlet,” adding that it is “tremendously difficult” for original reporting in the Beacon to gain any “traction in the mainstream.”

“It does happen, but we face major obstacles from the likes of Brian Stelter, who I think are considered it beneath them to dignify it when we have real stories,” Johnson said.

She remarked that the “groupthink” mentality at CNN stifles the entertaining of any idea not from the leftist playbook and quashes what would otherwise be major news stories.

“I worked at Politico. Your social circle becomes the Politico reporters, the Times reporters, the [Washington] Post reporters, these people are all talking to each other and that’s part of what I found sort of unsatisfying,” Johnson told Duncan. “I was doing CNN for a couple of years, but I felt like, who am I actually- you’re not talking to persuadables or really making a difference.”

She added that covering stories involving “wokeism gone too far” doesn’t find any purchase at leftist outlets like CNN, even though on an internal level, they are regularly being eaten by the alligator of wokeness they keep feeding.

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Frank Webster

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Frank (Chip) Webster is a musician and composer, former teacher of percussion and U.S. Army Infantry veteran. He holds a degree in English from Arizona State University.

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