Back in a largely missed cable news moment in March, US Congressman Byron Donalds (R-FL) was praised for taking CNN’s Pamela Brown to task for her network’s decision to viciously attack President Trump for the same issues it refused to cover during the Biden presidency, noting that it only seems to care about issues like prices when doing so harms Republicans.
For reference, the incident in which Rep. Donalds went nuclear on Pamela Brown came when he appeared on her “Situation Room” show on Thursday, March 6, and defended the president’s decisions to use tariffs to negotiate with Canada, Mexico, and China, all of which are major American trading partners that many MAGA voters see as having taken advantage of lax American trade policy.
The spat began with Brown asking, “I want to ask you about this breaking news just coming in to CNN that Trump just announced that Mexico will not be required to pay tariffs on any products that fall under the USMCA agreement. He did this, quote, ‘Out of respect for the Mexican president.’ Was Trump’s back-and-forth tariff decision the right call, especially given the volatility of markets?”
Responding, Rep. Donalds first pointed to the pressing need for border security, saying, “Well, look, I’m going to repeat myself a little bit here. It is important that we stabilize not just our economic relationships around the globe, but also the fact that we got to secure our border and we got to stop the flow of fentanyl.”
Continuing, he noted that CNN and other critics need to give the president the opportunity he needs to negotiate with those countries, as only if he can use the tools in his toolkit to raise pressure on them can we get a good deal. He said, “Give Donald Trump the opportunity to actually negotiate with the Mexican president and with Canada and with China.”
That’s when Rep. Donalds got to his point slamming CNN for its very different coverage of the Trump and Biden economies, saying, “You got to give him that opportunity, because when prices were rising in the United States, I didn’t hear CNN talking about that much. As a matter of fact, you ignored most of it while it was hurting the American people.”
“Well, we did,” Brown interjected. Rep. Donalds, ignoring her, continued with his point and returned to his argument that the president needs to be given room to negotiate. He said, “So, let the president negotiate on tariff policy. That is what he’s doing, and it’s going to work out to the better.”
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The two then argued about CNN’s coverage, with Brown snapping, “We did cover, we did cover that.” Rep. Donalds noted, firing back, that the network hadn’t really covered the Bidenflation disaster as it should have been covered, saying, “You didn’t cover it the way it needed to be covered. Let’s just be perfectly honest.” She replied, “OK, well, that’s a matter of opinion.”
Rep. Donalds then reiterated his claim that the network hadn’t covered the Biden issues well, saying, “You let the last administration get away with it but the American people suffered as a result.” She snapped, “That is your opinion, but we did.” Donalds told her, “Oh, no, that’s not my opinion. That’s a fact.”
Watch her here:
Featured image credit: screengrab from the embedded video