Published July 1st.

Presidential historian Allan Lichtman took aim at CNN's News Central hosts Monday morning for being "complicit" in Donald Trump's political rise amid the presumptive Republican nominee's bid for a second term.

Lichtman, appearing with hosts John Berman and Sara Sidner, shifted gears during his comments about recent polls between Trump and Democratic incumbent Joe Biden.

He believes Trump's remarks during last week's debate should have grabbed more headlines than Biden's much-discussed struggles.

"I love you guys in the media, but I have to say, you are complicit in Donald Trump lying and conning his way to the presidency. All of the attention has been on Biden's faltering debate, but Donald Trump's debate was vastly worse," Lichtman said. "It was based entirely on lies. More than 30 significant lies.

"He threatened our democracy by saying he wouldn't accept the results of a fair election. That he would seek retribution. Why wasn't that the headlines? Why wasn't that the greatest concern from the debate, rather than all of the focus on Joe Biden."

In his rebuke of the media's coverage of Trump, he continued:

"There's an old saying, it's not just the evil people who wreak havoc on the world, it's the good people who don't do enough to stop them. And the media right now is complicit in Donald Trump gaslighting his way to the presidency and threatening our democracy," Lichtman added.

They treated Trump as a real candidate back in 2016, artifically elevating him, all because Hillary thought it was an easy win.. CNN is absolutely complacent

CNN: "Biden's too old! He's unfit to be president."

"What about the convicted felon and rapist? Isn't he unfit?"

CNN: * crickets *

Biden is boring and poor for ratings. Biden has dementia!? That's ratings!

Trump: (Ratings intensify)

Literally every day from 2016 to 2020 there was a new scandal. Some new horrible thing he said. It was never ending. Then there was January 6th and it was finally quiet. Quiet for nearly two years....

RNC: if you announce your candidacy, we won't pay your legal bills.

DOJ: About those classified documents.....

Trump: I'm running for president!

RNC: ...

Trump: RNC needs new leadership, here's my daughter in law. Also all funding goes to me first.

RNC: Trump is your God Emperor!

...

Supreme Court: Trump is your God Emperor!

Project 2024: Trump is your God Emperor!

Project 2024: Submit and there won't be bloodshed!

CNN: Yes!!!

MSNBC: Yes!!!

The real issue is that today's Republican party is not based on facts at all, it's based on a collective hallucination, wishful thinking, alternative facts, which Republicans believe instead of actual facts.

The vast majority of the lies Trump spewed during the debate are things that Republicans believe are true. When each side has their own facts, the simple act of fact checking becomes a partisan exercise. And holding their candidate to account equals a partisan witch hunt.

This forces each media outlet to choose a side. If they want any attention at all from the Right, they have to lie like them. Outlets that stick to objective facts will be immediately dismissed by half the electorate. While we'd like to think most outlets worth following will choose actual facts, alternative facts increase your base and may lead to more profits.

Is anyone surprised? They basically said as much when CNN was acquired by Warner Bros

NYT too.

If I have to see this false prophet Lichtman's bowl cut one more time, I swear to god... Here are just a few facts about this asshole:

• It's really not some miracle that he got these elections right, considering he waits until last-minute to predict them.
• He gave a full-throated endorsement of Hillary Clinton... only to predict she'd lose later on in the race.
• He hasn't given his fucking prediction for THIS cycle yet.
• Even based on his own "keys," he is not remaining impartial because he has no idea whether an alternative candidate would get all the keys just the same.
• He inflates incumbency despite Biden's 37% approval-rating and losing pre and post-first debate in polls... Which if you look at historical trends, that NEVER bodes well for the incumbent.

By the way I emailed this shithead challenging his methodology (and I remained much more neutral than this) to no response. In fact I wouldn't be the least-bit surprised if the only reason he wants Biden to remain the nominee is to ensure he maintains record for election predictions by later predicting his easy defeat.

Nate Silver has a far more predictive, mathematical model than this dumb fuck. He can Lichtma balls. (ok that last one I just had to out of adolescent gallows humor, but he threw the first punch with name-calling those wanting Biden to step down).

They do have more conservative donors

Whatever gets people more money. Sigh. 🫡

Every single piece of media and online community that did not laugh at Trump and tell him to shut the hell up and get his ass out of the 2016 election is complicit in him doing ANYTHING.

I blame reddit, big-time, for the massive push of his bullshit because they allowed a certain subreddit that will remain nameless here to TAKE OVER THEIR ENTIRE FREAKING "all" PAGE with obvious lies, slander, and other things that would have gotten banned on any other subreddit and did absolutely nothing until AFTER the election to curb it. But yeah, anyone else that didn't just ignore him completely and ask when a real candidate for the Republicans was going to show up is responsible for his bullshit.

What a clusterfuck.