President Donald Trump received the best campaign help he could have hoped for heading into his 2020 re-election campaign, critics said, thanks to a controversial CNN segment from Saturday night.
The segment featured CNN’s Don Lemon, whose two guests laughed at every one of the 62,984,825 Trump voters from 2016 and called them “uneducated” and illiterate.
Ex-GOP senator Rick Wilson and New York Times columnist Wajahat Ali were discussing Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent spat with an NPR reporter when the segment went off the rails.
“He also knows deep in his heart that Donald Trump couldn’t find Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual, physical crane next to it,” Wilson joked before turning his ire on the “credulous boomer rubes” that back the current administration.
Lemon laughed so hard he cried.
In the controversial segment, Wilson openly mocked Trump and his supporters.
“He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world,” he added.
“And so that’s partly him playing to the base and playing to their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that backs Donald Trump.”
Lemon laughed as Wilson dug a little deeper, attempting to mimic how he thought all Trump supporters sounded.
“‘Donald Trump’s the smart one — any y’all elitists are dumb!'” he said in an exaggerated southern accent.
“‘Your math and your reading! All those lines on the map!'”
“‘You elitists with your geography and your maps- — and yer spelling!'”
“That was a good one,” Lemon said, struggling to compose himself.
Critics rushed to condemn the segment and labeled it as a shocking example of the dismissive attitude media personalities have for middle America.
First Daughter Ivanka Trump condemned CNN on social media.
“You consistently make fun of half the country and then complain that it is divided,” she wrote.
“The arrogance, mocking accents and smug ridicule of this nation’s ‘Real Elites’ is disgusting.”
You consistently make fun of half the country and then complain that it is divided.
The arrogance, mocking accents and smug ridicule of this nation’s ‘Real Elites’ is disgusting. https://t.co/p3RQzymx4s
— Ivanka Trump (@IvankaTrump) January 28, 2020
More than 8 million Obama voters chose to support Trump in 2016.
Democrats know that to win the White House, they’ll need to win those voters back in 2020.
This means that CNN’s Don Lemon is only helping Trump’s re-election efforts.
Welcome news to those working on Trump’s 2020 campaign.
The Associated Press contributed to this article