Media top headlines September 28
In media news today, Chris Cuomo's sexual harassment accuser says the CNN host hasn't changed since groping her, 'The View' addresses their COVID testing fiasco, and sources say a female CNN producer exited 'Cuomo Prime Time' after feeling 'threatened' by the namesake anchor
White House Chief of Staff Ron Klain appears to have rekindled his Twitter love affair with Washington Post columnist Jennifer Rubin just as he was forming another with one of her own colleagues.
Ever since Politico reported on the gushy relationship between the NeverTrump columnist and the Biden administration, Klain had given Rubin the cold shoulder on social media despite her constant pro-Biden cheerleading.
That was until Tuesday evening when Klain retweeted White House Rapid Response Director Mike Gwin, who shared Rubin's latest column claiming Biden's top defense officials "debunked" the criticism the president received over his chaotic withdrawal from Afghanistan during their testimony on Capitol Hill.
"The notion that the Taliban would have halted its advance if the United States kept a few thousand troops in the country defies logic," Gwin quoted Rubin in the tweet.
(Twitter)
This development gives hope that the Klain-Rubin relationship can sustain publicized drama and signals the top Biden aide has not moved on after it appeared he had with one of Rubin's own colleagues.
Washington Post columnist Max Boot penned a piece Monday titled, "Biden gets no credit for making immigration more humane," offering the Biden administration praise despite the backlash it has received over its alleged treatment of Haitian migrants at the southern border.
"I enjoy a good political dust-up as much as the next columnist, but the frenzy of attacks directed at President Biden from both sides regarding his handling of immigration is over the top," Boot began before acknowledging the false narrative peddled by liberals that Border Patrol agents used whips on the migrants. "This is not Trump redux. The previous president carried out inhumane policies such as separating children from their parents, in part, because he wanted to deter more arrivals — but also because, as Adam Serwer of the Atlantic has argued, 'the cruelty is the point.'"
"Biden, by contrast, expressed horror at the way the Border Patrol treated the Haitians. The Department of Homeland Security is investigating what happened. If abuses occurred, they were contrary to the president’s intent — not in compliance with it as under Trump. That’s a big difference," Boot continued.
Boot shared his column on Twitter at least seven times highlighting various excerpts from the piece. Klain went on to retweet four of those tweets within the day.
Klain has retweeted Boot six times since Politico ran its story about the White House's coziness with Rubin.
The first retweet came on Sept. 20, sharing Boot's column insisting Biden "deserves credit for a major win in the U.S. competition with China" despite the dustup the foreign policy decision created with France.
His most recent retweet came Tuesday after Boot exclaimed "Mandates work!" in reaction to a report about a Bronx hospital seeing a sharp decline in unvaccinated staff following the implementation of a COVID vaccine mandate.
Meanwhile, Klain had not liked or retweeted anything from Rubin since Sept. 13, three days before Politico published its report, but ending that 15-day dry spell this week.
(Getty Images/Fox News/Getty Images)
Before the dramatic DC love triangle, Politico reported Klain had "retweeted or @ mentioned Rubin more than three dozen times since mid-May" and that her columns were promoted by the White House press team, the VP's office, the State Department and the DNC.
However, not all of Biden's allies were on board to share Rubin's work.
"The White House has encouraged outside allies to share some of Rubin’s articles online. One told West Wing Playbook that they declined to do so because they thought it was just too embarrassing to earnestly share a Rubin column, given her history as a conservative and perceived tendency to pander to the administration," Politico reported on Sept. 16.
JENNIFER RUBIN SHATTERS GLASS CEILING, BECOMES FIRST WOMAN TO WIN ‘LIBERAL HACK TOURNAMENT’
One Washington Post employee told Politico "some people in the newsroom are increasingly frustrated that Rubin is parroting the administration's critiques of the media, which they believe emboldens the administration to push back on journalists even further" while two others said they "try to ignore her or don’t read her columns."
The Politico report went viral and sparked a fiery debate after the West Wing Playbook published Rubin's response she declared in the email was "OFF THE RECORD" despite Politico never making that agreement.
(Getty Images)
The columnist blasted Politico for running a "hit piece on a prominent woman" and slammed the "clickbait style of coverage" from a "misogynistic publication."
Rubin, a MSNBC contributor, was a prominent "NeverTrump" conservative ever since Donald Trump entered politics. It wasn't until September 2020 that she removed her "conservative" label from her Twitter bio, declaring at the time, "There is no conservative movement or party today."
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During the Trump era, Rubin was best known for flip-flopping on various positions she previously held as a conservative-sounding writer. She also claimed she cried "15, 20" times while watching the Democratic National Convention last year.
Last spring, Rubin shattered the glass ceiling, becoming the first woman and second person ever to win the viral "Liberal Hack Tournament."
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