CNN anchor Brianna Keilar tore apart former President Donald Trump’s first post-White House on-camera interview on Tuesday, describing the ex-president’s sitdown conversation with Fox News host Sean Hannity as a “mean girl group chat.”
Prior to jumping to morning show New Day, Keilar had drawn attention for her fiery “Roll the Tape” segments in which she systematically dismantles right-wing media figures and fact-checks political talking points. In a recent interview with The Daily Beast, Keilar said the segment would be a regular morning feature, which she exhibited on Tuesday.
“Usually when a former president gives his first interview after leaving the White House they wait longer than three months and have something new to say,” Keilar snarked right off the start. “In Donald Trump’s case, unfortunately, it was neither. He sat down for Sean Hannity’s propaganda hour and just like ‘Person, Woman, Man, Camera, TV,’ we’ve heard these hits before.”
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The CNN anchor particularly zeroed in on the fawning nature of Hannity’s interview, pointing out how Trump’s close pal never once asked about the multiple investigations the former president now faces—probes that could potentially derail a 2024 White House run that Trump keeps teasing.
After highlighting Hannity gushing over Trump’s supposedly “insane” current work schedule, Keilar took aim at the Fox host and ex-president peddling “conspiracy theories” about President Joe Biden’s mental fitness—adding that they did the interview “literally from a retirement home in Florida.”
Keilar also went off on a section of the interview in which Hannity asked Trump about whether or not he’d encourage his supporters to get the coronavirus vaccine.
“If there is anything newsworthy from this mean girl group chat, it is Donald Trump telling his skeptical supporters—whose vaccine hesitancy may prevent the U.S. from reaching herd immunity in the non-mass casualty way—to get vaccinated,” the CNN anchor said.
The ex-president did say he would urge his followers to get vaccinated, Keilar explained, but noted how Hannity had to coerce his buddy to do so.
“Americans didn’t find out he [was vaccinated] until March—about six weeks after he left the job,” she exclaimed. “And now Sean Hannity is pulling teeth to get Trump to tell his supporters that it’s safe and necessary.”
Keilar concluded: “Maybe if he promoted the shots in the arms the way he promoted the conspiracy theory of Biden getting a shot in the ass before he won the election, maybe some people would actually listen.”
