How many times have you watched as one of those "journalists" from the left wing media sit back and allows their leftist guest to go on and on, spewing talking point after talking point, uninterrupted, and with no meaningful follow-up questions? It happens all the time. But that's not the usual treatment that those on the other side of the political spectrum receive. Tuesday on CNN's News Central, Co-Host Brianna Keilar made that evident when she lost patience with Congressman Mike Lawler (R-NY), while talking about the future of Obamacare subsidies.
Keilar began the questioning by asking Lawler about his support for a vote on a one-year extension of the Obamacare subsidies, and if he felt that there should be a discharge petition to force a vote on it if Speaker Johnson doesn't bring it to the floor for a vote in the House. Next she wanted to know if he felt the bill would pass if it did come up for a vote. Then Keilar turned to affordability: "How do you tackle that monumental issue of affordability, an issue that a solution has eluded Congress for so many years?"
This should be a little embarrassing for Obama fans, since his plan was suppose to "solve" affordability. Lawler laid out some ideas for reforms:
LAWLER: When you look at health insurance, we need more competition. If you only have three, four, five insurance companies available in your state and you're not actually allowing the free market to work, that drives up costs. So people should be able to purchase health insurance plans across state lines. When you talk about small businesses and wanting employers to provide health coverage, we need to increase the ability for --
At this point the host starts talking over her guest until he stops. And after she questions him, she apparently didn't get the answer she was looking for, so she interrupts Lawler again. Fine, you have ideas, but we journalists want bill that will pass in months, not years:
KEILAR: Sir, I do just want to stop you because we have a limited amount of time here and I hear your ideas, but I mean, I've been covering -- I covered the passage of Obamacare as a congressional correspondent, which sort of dates me. But these ideas, you know a lot of them, they aren't new. Congress has had a lot of time to tackle these. Republicans certainly have. This idea of repeal and replace, replace with what, right?
Speaker Johnson told CNN's Kaitlan Collins a couple weeks ago that Republicans have proposals ready to address healthcare subsidies. Have you seen anything of substance that is actually ready to go rather than just kind of throwing out ideas? Because that's really tough to make into action at this point in time.
LAWLER: Well, again, I was walking through a series of bills that we can actually bring forth immediately. And I would support -- I'm not advocating for repealing and replacing Obamacare.
(CROSSTALK) KEILAR: But those proposal -- he's talking about proposals that --
LAWLER: Hold on, excuse me.
KEILAR: There's a difference between bills -- well, let me --
LAWLER: Excuse me.
KEILAR: No. Excuse me because I've let you talk a lot.
LAWLER: Go ahead.
Excuse me! Try to remember when you've seen a Democrat cut off with the justification being that they've been given a lot of time to talk.
Look no further than about 30 minutes later, when Keilar's co-anchor Boris Sanchez interviewed leftist Ezra Levin of Indivisible, who's so hopping mad about Democrats folding in the shutdown that his group will support primary elections against the Schumer types. Levin was allowed to uncork three answers that clocked in at about 270 words, or 90 seconds each. No interruptions, and he talked a lot.
I'll be the first to admit that Lawler isn't known for his concise answers, but that's no excuse for treating him the way he was treated by Keilar. Who made her the arbiter of which bills are the best bills, the most likely to pass quickly? But this looks like guests only get to talk when the host decides they can, and when the guest has an 'R' next to his name, or is a proud conservative, they are going to be interrupted and challenged.
