CNN featured a panel of six Trump supporters (three men, three women) Wednesday morning and despite host Alisyn Camerota’s surprise, they all defended the president and expressed their distrust of the media.
Camerota asked how many panelists were troubled by President Donald Trump’s response to Charlottesville, and not a single panelist raised their hand.
“I didn’t see anything wrong with it. I mean he addressed the problem. Let’s face reality, there are problems on both sides,” panelist Bob Viera said.
“I think it’s ridiculous to have me choose between Hitler and Stalin which is what I consider what both groups are,” he added. “If you’re willing to set fires and burn places to the ground, that doesn’t seem like a very peaceful group to me.”
One panelist, Daphne Goggins, said she is going to reserve judgement until the matter is fully investigated. Goggins said she is also convinced that not everyone at the rally was a neo-Nazi based on videos she saw on Facebook. When she tried to share those videos, she claims she was censored by the social media site.
After Camerota played a clip of angry white supremacists protesters chanting racial slurs against Jewish people, Goggins defended their right to free speech.
“Those crazy, I don’t know what else to call them. I probably can’t say it on TV. But they still have the right to say those crazy things,” she said.
Panelist Robert McCarthy blamed media bias and said, “The media is not covering it. They’re only focused on making neo-Nazis and white supremacists out to be Trump supporters.”
Trump supporter Amanda Delekta said it was unfair to insinuate that Trump voters are supporting neo-Nazis and said the coverage was negative and uncalled for.
“No one here is supporting the neo-Nazis or the white supremacists. And that narrative is really negative. but what we are talking about is President Trump’s response and he stood in front of America and he condemned the violence that occurred that day,” she said.
Panelist Jimmy Dozier pointed out that only a few hundred people were involved in the Charlottesville incident, but over 60 million people voted for Trump.
“You’re talking about three or four hundred people in Charlottesville. They’re sixty million people that voted for President Trump,” he said. “Why don’t we get a say? Those people aren’t nothing. Democrats have idiots, Republicans have idiots. But we’re talking about us, the sixty million that’s for Trump. We don’t do stuff like that.”
A female Trump supporter named L.A. Key suggested the violence may have been triggered on purpose and there may be ulterior motives behind the division. She too said her information came from Facebook, prompting Camerota to ask if the panel trusted Facebook more than traditional news media outlets.
Each panelist agreed that their trust in the mainstream media was slipping, and they trusted alternative internet sources more than cable news.
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