Dana Bash just claimed she's "objective about truth and facts" and a "registered independent," and she's not actually a "centrist" because she somehow doesn't belong on a political spectrum.
Last week The Bulwark’s Sarah Longwell, who campaigned with Kamala Harris, went on MS NOW's Morning Joe to promote her book, which calls for an end to the Trump era, and she claimed the “problem” that needed to be solved to end “this era of MAGA politics” was Trump voters. On CNN's Inside Politics on Monday, Dana Bash was anything but objective as she promoted Longwell and her theory that Republican lies create a "triangle of doom."
Bash introduced Longwell as "a Republican strategist turned anti-Trump media mogul" and noted that in her book, How to Eat an Elephant, she makes clear that Democrats "are getting their asses kicked on the communications front." She asked her how to fix that. Longwell almost immediately hit a Trump conspiracy theory.
LONGWELL: Donald Trump has changed the Republican party in very specific ways. He has hollowed it out and taken taken it from something that has anything connected to ideas or policies. And it's all about him.
In 2028, he's going to be gone. I know that there's going to be a big debate about does Trump actually leave? But whether it's for actuarial reasons or constitutional reasons, Donald Trump is going to reach the end of his power in the Republican party as an office holder. And that means that Democrats have a generational opportunity to reset the narrative about who they are and how to go on offense against the MAGA movement.
Longwell praised several Democrats for their communication skills, including Zohran Mamdani and AOC, before admitting the Dems need better messaging, which led to Bash excitedly bringing up Longwell's ridiculous triangle of doom theory.
BASH: Sarah, one of the things that you talk about that I really want you to expand on now for, for our audience, people who are not necessarily chronically online, like you and I are, is what you call the Republican triangle of doom and why it's so hard to beat. Explain what it is and give an example.
Try to follow the lunacy.
LONGWELL: So this is the toxic and symbiotic relationship between the right wing infotainment media ecosystem, Republican voters and Republican politicians, and they reinforce each other.
So I'll give you an easy example, which is, how did it come to pass that 70% of Republicans believed that the 2020 election was stolen? Well, Donald Trump sets the Republican triangle of doom in motion. He says this is stolen. Those right-wing media outlets run to bless the lie, to amplify the lie, which means that voters come to demand other outlets bless the lie. So you know you saw Newsmax, OANN, lots of right-wing podcasters. So suddenly Fox News is under fire for calling the election for Joe Biden. I listen to voters say that Fox News was a left-wing rag because it called the election for Joe Biden in 2020.
Longwell mangled the actual poll question from Politico. They asked if the 2020 election was "free and fair," not if it was "stolen." You can accept the result, and still feel like it was compromised by loosened voting procedures for the pandemic and social-media censorship of anti-Biden news reports, like the New York Post stories on Hunter Biden's laptop.
And then the triangle gets completed!
LONGWELL: And so then you've got the politicians say their voters want them to go out and bless the lies. Then you get semi-normal Republicans like Kevin McCarthy out there saying, yeah, something was wrong with that election. And before you know it, it becomes orthodoxy on the right.
And the Democrats have to find a way to overwhelm the lies of the Republican triangle of doom with truth. And they do not have the media amplification system in place to do it. They rely very much on singularly the mainstream media, but obviously that's not enough in this new, fragmented, fractured media environment.
Liberals are never funnier than when they claim they don't have a "media amplification system."
When Longwell's rant was over, Bash could not hide how thankful she was to have heard it presented on her show.
BASH: It sure isn't. But luckily, we're still here and you blessed us with your presence. And this is your book, How to Eat an Elephant. First of all, just how great is that cover? It's pretty cool.
LONGWELL: I love it.
BASH: Sarah -- and more importantly, the inside of the book, the content is great.
So much for Bash the Objective Journalist.
Well Longwell is certainly correct about the Democrats "relying very much" on the "mainstream media." For example, a study from NewsBusters shows during past 6 seasons, CBS's 60 Minutes aired 5 times more liberal stories than conservative,
But it's digital news too. Analysis of the Media Research Center’s Digital News Tracker data reveals Silicon Valley’s digital news gatekeepers have been busy interfering in the 2026 midterms since the election season began, sharing only 5% of stories from right-leaning media outlets.
And here's more proof on both media fronts. If Longwell is ever presented with these studies by a real journalist, it might spell the end of her "triangle of doom" claims. Don't hold your breath.
