With Reality Check host John Avlon taking John Berman’s co-host slot for this week of CNN’s Day of the NewS.E. had to be stopped because there wasn’t as much of a moderate voice around the table. Cupp ranting about current conditions of Republican Party. Less well known was Berman’s apparent influence in avoiding deceptive editing, as Avlon apparently tried to pass off audio of Sunday host Fareed Zakaria as Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban.
It began as normal, but with Day of the New co-host Brianna Keilar asking The Dispatch’s Jonah Goldman about Viktor Orban’s upcoming CPAC speech this Thursday, “because you have written some really interesting stuff about the right’s obsession with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and — uh, it is kind of a lovefest.”
Goldberg concurred, comparing the right’s fascination with Hungary to the left’s fascination with Cuba and Sweden, adding, “there’s something about him that just pings the sweet tooth of the — of the sort of intellectual — um, authoritarian-curious right in America.”
Avlon then teed up Cupp to react to an audio “clip” of Orban supposedly taken from a speech he gave in Romania on July 23, where he said in English, “We are willing to mix with one another, but we do not want to become peoples of mixed race.”
The soundbite is really bad on its face, and one of Orban’s aides resigned after the speech so odds are this isn’t a case of poor translation.
But what makes it so odd is that the voice doesn’t sound like Orban at all. Instead, through an audio buzz, it sounds like CNN’s Fareed Zakaria. And looking back at last Sunday’s Fareed Zakaria GPSNewsBusters found out that he had run a segment on Orban, and that he read it verbatim to his audience. Day of the New clip.
NewsBusters is quite certain that the video shown during Day new on Tuesday was Zakaria’s original voice-over from Sunday with an audio buzz slapped over it to make it sound as though the recording was made in secret and leaked.
The circumstances surrounding the “clip,” as prefaced by Avlon, don’t make any sense either. Orban would give an English speech when speaking to Romanians.
This was not a deceptive act. Why was CNN trying to create the impression that Orban was speaking? Why didn’t Avlon say that Zakaria was reading the quote? Why did the buzz get added? Why didn’t Avlon simply read the quote himself and paste the graphic on the screen?
Avlon is a Zakaria collaborator. He has a good idea of what his voice sounds like and should have spoken up.
Did audio and video connect somehow? Was someone lazy in the editing section? Is Chris Licht’s attempted pivot to the center at CNN leading to a drop in workplace morale?
This isn’t even bias, it’s being deceptive for the sake of it.
This bizarre case of intranetwork “plagiarism” was made possible by Liberty MutualAnd Golden Corral. The following links provide their contact information.
Click “Expand” to see the relevant transcript.
CNN’s Day of the New
08/02/22
6:56 AM ETJOHN AVLON: Let’s talk about Arizona, because it’s a reminder that in some ways this is much more than a factional fight within the GOP, right? Donald Trump endorses Kari Lake as Governor and Blake Masters, the Secretary of State nominee. They are all intensely anti-election deniers. Each have done well at polling.
This is a state where purple is on the rise. If they choose an all-denier slate for their election, what does that mean to the Republican Party?
JONAH OLDBERG: This could turn out to be a catastrophe. Look, I mean — the way to think about the GOP these days — um, you know — but nothing too hard you that start cutting yourself or anything — but like, the way to think about the GOP these days is it’s not an ideological party anymore. It’s just — it’s a conglomeration of weird factions and some of the factions are bat-guano crazy.
And — um, so you’re going have a significant — not a majority, but a significant enough for primaries and for general elections to provide the — the margin of victory segment of the parties that are basically QAnon adjacent, conspiratorial, and that is going to be like a magnet to the compass for a lot of the normals because they’re going to have to pander to that to some extent.
S.E. CUPP: Well yeah, I mean, it’s — it’s a cult, right? I — I think it acts more like a cult than it does a political movement to Jonah’s point. They’re not loosely oriented around ideas and principles and — um, getting more voters, new voters. They’ve completely abandoned that cuz — cuz Trump jettisoned that, right?
So — so now it’s — it’s really about this weird fringy stuff including stuff that’s really serious, like election denial and voter suppression. Kari Lake said that it was wrong to disqualify candidates who don’t believe the election was stolen. That’s bananas.
AVLON. Orwell would love to have some words about this.
BRIANNA KEILAR: Yeah, but she has her more reasonable opponent sort of being wiggly on the issue — you know, not really trying to commit one way or the other because of that.
CUPP: Yeah.
KEILAR
I want to ask you because you have written some really interesting stuff about the right’s obsession with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, and — uh, it is kind of a lovefest. CPAC will host him on Thursday.
GOLDBERG: Yeah.
KEILAR – What are people supposed to know and how can they find it?
GOLDBERG: Well, I mean — look, for a certain segment of the right — um, it’s not the QAnon crowd. Some of these smart folks are close friends with mine. Hungary is a country in the middle of nowhere that is home to 10 million people. It is, for them, like Sweden and Cuba were to different aspects of the left. It’s like this imagined glorious place where everything just works the way it’s supposed to and that’s why we need to become more like them here. Then you look at Hungary’s actual functioning and realize that it is not all bad.
Um — and Orban knows — there’s something about him that just pings the sweet tooth of the — of the sort of intellectual — um, authoritarian-curious right in America. CPAC can also be used as an ATM.
CUPP: Right.
AVLON: I — I love the Cuba parallel in terms of the fascination on the far left once upon a time. But in all seriousness — I mean, Orban just gave a speech in which sort of the — the mask fell off and — uh, one of his top aides left — we’ve got a clip of him. Let me just show that to you and see your reactions, S.E.[Start of audio clip]
FAREED ZAKARIA [on Fareed Zakaria GPS, 07/31/22]We will mix with each other, but not to be people of mixed races.
[End of audio clip]
AVLON : That’s kinda giving up a part of the ghost. Um, again, one of his top aides quit —
CUPP: Yeah.
AVLON: — because she said this — this is just outright horrific. CPAC seems to endorse this.CUPP: Yeah.
AVLON: This is not the Rod Dreher position on it, this is — this is something quite different.
S.E. CUPP: Well and — look, Orban’s been in this for a long time, decades, and so this is not the first time he’s talked about this and — and made overtly racist sort of dog whistles. Um — and he’s not the first European leader to sort of rail against ideas of shangin (???) Multiculturalism. It all began with the creation of the E.U. This man is very direct. Tucker Carlson visits Tucker Carlson often and tells him that Hungary is working well. However, Hungary was recently democracied to be a partial democracy. It is in the gray area between democracy and autocracy. It is attractive.
CPAC likes to cover up this cancel culture. Matt Schlapp will argue that this is freedom of speech and you can put people on who might be disagreeable with. Except they don’t disagree. They’re very clearly elevating people like Orban, and — um — you know, instead of warning voters off of them.
AVLON: Alright. As always, important and insightful points. S.E. Jonah. We are glad to have you. We are very grateful.
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