‘Excuse Me, Don’t Interrupt’: Adviser for ‘Black Men for Trump’ Spars with CNN’s Alyssa Farah Griffin
Former White House director of strategic communications Alyssa Farah Griffin sparred with “Black Men For Trump” adviser T.W. Shannon on CNN, Tuesday over former President Donald Trump’s impromptu 40-minute musical this week.
After CNN anchor Anderson Cooper played a montage of Trump’s bizarre town hall on Monday – which saw him play music and stand on stage for more than 40 minutes after two people in the audience fainted – Griffin reacted, “I’m more confused than Kristi Noem looks on that stage. This is truly one of the most bizarre things I’ve seen in American politics.”
She continued, “If Joe Biden had done this and on stage just bobbed and weaved and danced to music for 40 minutes with no purpose, saying, ‘The voters don’t want to hear answers to questions,’ three weeks out from an election, yes, we would say Joe Biden is unfit and not up for the task of being president for another four years.”
Shannon responded, “Come on. Come on, Alyssa. Listen, this is a non-story. President Trump was doing the right thing, which was absolutely appropriate. You had two people who passed out.”
“So he couldn’t go back to taking questions?” asked Griffin, who worked in several communications positions in Trump’s White House.
Shannon then snapped, “Excuse me, don’t interrupt. Let me finish, Alyssa. I didn’t interrupt you. What he did do was stand there and allow the people to be serviced, to allow them to get out safely.”
He argued:
Sitting there, allowing the music to play was absolutely the appropriate thing to do, and anybody trying to make a story out of this, they’re trying to make a mountain out of a molehill. This is a non-starter. I’m at a Trump rally right now. There’s a reason people are lined up around the building, waiting to see this man speak, probably for an hour, an hour-and-a-half non-stop. If you think Joe Biden could do that, if you think Kamala Harris could get through without laughing her head off, then you tell me when that’s been done before because it hasn’t happened.
Griffin questioned, “Do you truly think voters did not show up to a town hall – which is by definition asking questions, to hear answers to questions – they showed up to hear him DJ and sway on stage?”
“Alyssa, there were people that actually got injured. They were being carried out on stretchers, ma’am,” Shannon argued, to which Griffin noted, “This went on for 40 minutes.”
Cooper then asked Shannon, “You’re saying emergency workers couldn’t bring two people out in the 40 minutes, 45 minutes that he stood on stage playing music?”
Watch above via CNN.
