It’s a pretty normal pattern for former White House staffers to write tell-all books and appear on media outlets as experts and pundits. It’s not new. However, what is a new phenomenon is how all these people who worked for Donald Trump are trying to pretend like they weren’t in on all the fascism, racism and non-stop crazy that we suffered through for four years. Of course, no matter how much they try to present themselves as regular staffers and politicians, they are just as dirty as their boss.
On Saturday’s The Cross Connection, host Tiffany Cross made her feelings on the subject very clear as she took ABC to task for reportedly hiring Trump White House communications director Alyssa Farah Griffin as the new co-host of The View. Apparently, she’ll take over for Meghan McCain as the conservative voice.
During her essay segment, Cross took the mainstream media to the woodshed for making the same mistakes it made after Trump was elected. If you recall, back in 2016 we were inundated with think pieces on how lost and ignored white midwesterners were. There were endless stories with forlorn working class white people sitting in a diner looking out a window at a changing America. Tiffany is absolutely not here for going down that road again.
“Let’s please not forget that this tawdry turncoat Trump loyalist quickly morphed into an opportunist after voluntarily taking jobs with the Trump administration. Signing onto his regime knowing full well what he was,” Cross said.
The host went on to add that like many of her Trump co-horts, Griffin “rode his wave of open xenophobia and racism all the way to network television.”
Just to be clear, Griffin is no innocent bystander. According to Yahoo! News, she’s previously written for her father’s far-right website WorldNetDaily, didn’t condemn Trump after he told the Proud Boys to “stand back and stand by” and supported a vote recount in Pennsylvania following the 2020 presidential election, suggesting “officials had attempted to interfere with the result.” Though she tried to rehabilitate her image after resigning from the administration, tweeting, “Condemn this now” and saying “We must accept these results,” after the Jan. 6 insurrection, Tiffany is not buying it at all.
“Ain’t nobody impressed with that. That was a convenient thing to do,” Cross said, while recounting Griffin’s efforts to look more respectable.
This sort of thing happens after every presidential administration, but it’s more egregious this time because we saw all these people stand silent as Trump encouraged his crazed followers to burn democracy down. As she showed footage of former White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s horrible performance on Dancing With the Stars, Cross pondered why media bosses are so happy to forget all those hard learned lessons from 2016.
“So as we watch these people, who think a feigned apology is accountability, get rewarded with TV deals, book deals and stints with Dancing on the Stars…it is so clear to us that many in the media are still trying to normalize these folks,” she said.
“They would say that we can’t forget about viewers in the midwestern/flyover states who may feel differently than us. Yeah, I actually agree with that. I’m all for it. Let’s focus on viewers in Cleveland, Chicago, Detroit and St. Louis. Because as you see, younger, more diverse audiences have begun to rely on social media for their news and information, and we’ve seen how problematic that can be,” Cross added. “We also wonder why so many gatekeepers actively ignore a growing, influential market which drives culture and conversation by catering to this smaller sect of society, because they are uncomfortable talking about race. Their feelings always seem to matter more than truth, history and facts.”
We can see it all happening again, except this time instead of controlling the narrative of how a maniac became president, they’re just rewriting history to pretend the racism never happened.
And while you may think some Trump staffer on The View is not a big deal, that’s what everyone said the day Trump came down the escalator talking crazy, and look where that got us.