John Berman tried to hold Rick Santorum accountable for what he said in 2014.
This contextual accountability hardly ever happens on cable news, so some kudos are warranted here.
But John Berman couldn't overcome his first problem, which is HAVING RICK SANTORUM ON YOUR SHOW, JOHN.
Sure, Rick Santorum got his panties in a huge twist when Barack Obama used executive actions to bypass the total obstruction of Mitch McConnell to allow any accomplishments from his administration. Don't forget that McConnell went so far in his obstructionism in 2012 that he filibustered his own bill.
That context is completely missing from the CNN conversation. As is the fact that the House passed a bill on March 15 providing support for working families during the pandemic. Rather than follow regular order (the Senate passing their own bill and the two bills going to conference committee to hash out the differences) Mitch McConnell called the House bill "dead on arrival" and dithered for weeks.
The mainstream media really wants to blame "both sides" for this. Once again, it's Mitch McConnell's obstructionism at play, with a complicit media helping cover up his crime against working families.
Do better, CNN. Stop having Rick Santorum on your shows, and if you're going to talk history, watch some Jon Stewart from 2012.
RICK SANTORUM: I would say, number one, some of the things the president is suggesting are proper use of executive action, like suspending the payroll tax temporarily. He'll need Congress to come back and make it permanent, so people don't have to pay it back. But he can certainly do that. That's not -- a couple of the executive actions are clearly fine. There's a couple that are not and I would say that President Obama has set the precedent, and that's the problem. That's the reason that many Republicans came out when he was spending money on health care that he was not -- under Obamacare that he was not permitted to spend under the act, that he was establishing the DACA program that was again, not a legitimate use of executive power, many of us stepped forward and said, no, you can't do this and you're setting a horrible precedent that now Donald Trump is following. So I find the hypocrisy of Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, who applauded President Obama for using this unconstitutional executive action, are now complaining that President Trump is doing the same thing.
BERMAN: But i'm giving you an opportunity to not be a hypocrite.
SANTORUM: You heard me say it, John --
BERMAN: I know, you blamed President Obama. I want to know, do you approve of the executive action --
SANTORUM: No, I don't. [CROSSTALK]
BERMAN: I want to give you the opportunity to say, why don't you approve of the action that president Trump, this president, took?
SANTORUM: The action that you just spoke of, creating a new unemployment system, if you will, is something that is under the purview of Congress to do and not for the president to be able to do. And just like when Barack Obama funded health insurance companies illegally, in my opinion, unconstitutionally, both are under the purview of congress to appropriate that money and he can't just unilaterally do that.
