CNN's Abby Phillip Interrupts GOP Governor's Criticism With An Inconvenient Fact

New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) tried to blame the “liberal media” for an article that CNN ’s Abby Phillip  reminded him was written by a Republican.

Phillip had asked Sununu for his reaction to an essay published in The Atlantic  on Wednesday arguing that former President Donald Trump is leaning more and more into authoritarian rhetoric.

It was written by Peter Wehner , who served as an aide in the administrations of three Republican presidents. 

“When you look at articles like that, that is liberal media doing everything they can to distract from the fact that the left-wing progressives...” Sununu began .

Phillip interrupted: “This is a conservative, by the way. This is someone who worked for a Republican president.”

But Sununu forged ahead without missing a beat, arguing that the article was part of a “national effort” to “distract from the massive amount of antisemitism you’re seeing out of the Democrat party.”

“And too many people in the media and otherwise not pushing back on that narrative,” he said. “What we’re seeing in our colleges and our universities is very real. It is hateful. It is unprecedented.”

Phillip noted again that the op-ed was written by a Republican, and asked Sununu a second time about Trump’s authoritarian language. Sununu, a Trump critic, said he’s aware of Trump’s history with this kind of rhetoric, but still sees coverage of it as a distraction.

“It’s not a distraction. He is the frontrunner,” Phillip replied, referring to Trump’s wide lead in the Republican 2024 presidential race.

Since last month’s outbreak of war between Israel and the Hamas militant group that controls the Gaza Strip, there has been a surge in antisemitic and Islamophobic hate speech and attacks across the U.S.

Wehner’s article and Phillips’ questioning focussed on Trump’s recent use of the word “vermin” to describe his political enemies. The term was used in Nazi Germany propaganda about Jews, as well as by other cruel movements  in history that sought to dehumanize and incite violence and hatred against certain groups of people.

Republicans have largely looked the other way  on Trump’s use of the term. However, Republicans (and some Democrats ) in Congress have criticized certain progressives  in the Democratic conference, arguing that their critiques of Israel and defenses of Palestinians cross over into antisemitism.