Cnn

An absolutely ghoulish spectacle unrolled on YouTube yesterday, as disgraced former CNN Trump gadfly Jim Acosta “interviewed” teenager Joaquin Oliver. The problem is that Joaquin Oliver was killed in the Parkland shooting in 2018. This interview took place with an AI simulation of Joaquin. On what would have been Joaquin’s 25th birthday, his father, Manuel Oliver, released this Black Mirror monster into the world. To make matters worse for the AI simulation, it had to talk to Jim Acosta. On the one hand, the stream, as of this writing, has barely 6,000 views. The average seven-year-old Roblox streamer does better than that. However, the interview is so deeply disturbing, so bald-facedly manipulative, that it deserves scrutiny.

“I’ve been researching comedy,” CNN’s Elle Reeve announces grimly at the start of her hour-long interview with comedian Tim Dillon, released this week more than a month after it was recorded. What follows is an extended whine about the manner in which legacy broadcast media in America has ceded its status as the gatekeeper of the American cultural narrative to podcasters. Is it the most satisfying piece of television I've ever watched? Possibly, yes. The irony – and it’s almost too perfect to articulate – is that had Dillon not demanded, while appearing recently on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast, that CNN release the interview in full rather than packaged into a tightly edited segment to fit a specific narrative, it probably would never have seen the light of day.

“Trump has lowest 100-day approval rating in 80 years,” screamed ABC News at the start of this week. The ABC News/Washington Post poll, conducted by Ipsos to mark Trump’s 100th day in office, was one of a handful that have shown Trump’s approval rating dipping below 40 percent for the first time. There is just one problem: the pollsters who are showing the worst numbers for Trump are the ones who got the election most wrong. Take the ABC/WaPo/Ipsos poll, that showed Trump on 39 percent approval. In their final poll of the 2024 cycle, they found a three-point lead for Kamala Harris. Ipsos’s other poll for Reuters had a two-point advantage for Harris nationally. Trump ended up winning the popular vote by one and a half points.

President Joe Biden and President-elect Donald Trump were all smiles at the White House on Wednesday as the two met to discuss efforts to transition to a new presidential administration. The duo appeared in front of reporters this afternoon as Biden emphatically shook Trump’s hand and congratulated him on his victory before promising a “smooth transition.“We’ll do everything we can to make sure you’re accommodated with what you need,” Biden said. “We’re going to get to talk about some of that today.”  “Thank you very much. Politics is tough and is in many cases not a very nice world, but it is a nice world today,” Trump replied. “I very much appreciate it.

Welcome to Thunderdome, or as David Axelrod calls it, Word Salad City. Kamala Harris’s closing argument played out in a CNN town hall last night, and it wasn’t much of an argument at all. On question after question, Harris reverted to talking points that often had little or nothing to do with the query posed to her. On the border? No answer on why the administration took so long to act. On taxpayer-funded benefits for illegal migrants? I was a prosecutor. On a border wall? It’s a dumb idea that I now say is a good idea. On taxes? It’s a very complicated situation. On food inflation? Greedy price gouging grocers. On her weaknesses? They’re actually strengths. On any mistakes she’s made?