‘A Boomerang Effect’: CNN Host Blames Media’s ‘Browbeating’ Of Trump For Kamala’s Loss

Kamala Harris might have had the backing of A-list Hollywood stars and deep-pocketed political donors, but President Donald Trump clearly had the support of the American people when he achieved an electoral and popular vote victory earlier this month.

And in the days since the election, mainstream media sources have been analyzing Harris’ defeat in an effort to determine exactly what went wrong for the left.

CNN’s Michael Smerconish has an idea, which he recently shared on the air.

According to Fox News:

“But I think that the constant browbeating and the combination of the media influence and the four indictments, one conviction, and showing, you know, that god-awful joke from Madison Square Garden a week in advance of the election on a loop — and I felt it, and I said it,” he told his Mediaite host.

Smerconish was referencing the controversial anti-Puerto Rican joke made by roast comic and Trump supporter Tony Hinchcliffe during Trump’s New York City rally last month, in which he called the U.S. territory a “floating island of garbage.”

The media characterized the joke as a huge insult to the Puerto Rican community coming from Trump’s campaign just days before the election.

President Biden would go on to make the moment more controversial for the Democratic Party when he appeared to call Trump supporters “garbage” in response to the joke, a soundbite which the Trump campaign used to its own advantage.

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Smerconish noted that he hadn’t made any predictions about whether Trump would win in the lead up to the election, but said the media’s relentless naysaying about Trump gave him a feeling it could backfire.

“I can’t sit here, Aiden, telling you, well, this is the way I called the election, but I definitely felt the potential for a boomerang effect, and I think that came true. I really do.”

Back in August, Smerconish said on Friday that Trump held a significant advantage over Vice President Harris on policy.

“So the question is one of the race going to be about personality. If it is, he loses,” Smerconish said of Trump, adding that Trump, however, “probably wins” in a battle over policy with Harris.

The media’s obvious bias has been the topic of significant social media discussion throughout the election season:

🚨🇺🇸2024 MEDIA COVERAGE SHOWS RECORD BIAS AGAINST TRUMP

ABC, CBS, and NBC evening news gave 78% positive coverage to Kamala, while Trump received only 15% positive coverage—a 63-point gap.

This marks the most unbalanced media coverage in recent history, surpassing the 58-point… pic.twitter.com/d7uHZw71iB

— Mario Nawfal (@MarioNawfal) November 5, 2024

ERIC TRUMP: "The media has lost all credibility. He had a media that was against him every day. Joe and Mika are trashing my dad every morning. They used to spend weekend at Mar-a-Lago. Oprah, Erin Burnett, Anderson Cooper, Don Lemon, we knew them all and they loved us…until my… pic.twitter.com/JnnVmBlvP5

— X Analyst (@topic_flow) November 17, 2024

BREAKING: President Trump is suing media outlets for $10 billion, accusing them of bias. He has filed lawsuits against the New York Times, CBS, and other organizations, alleging defamation and political prejudice.

— Team Trump 🇺🇸🏅 (@TrumpTeamNews) November 15, 2024

Other media figures, including comedian and HBO host Bill Maher, had their own theories about why Trump came out on top.

According to the Daily Beast:

“I got bad news for you, they don’t have a monopoly on stupid,” he said. “You wear Queers for Palestine T-shirts, and masks two years after the pandemic ended. And you can’t define ‘woman’—I mean, ‘person who menstruates.’ You’re the Teachers Union education party, and you’ve turned schools and colleges into a joke. You just lost a crazy contest to an actual crazy person.”

Maher continued, “You love to speak truth to power, and we always should, but you have completely lost the ability to speak truth to bulls–t.”

In his next attack on the Democrats, Maher claimed that the party‘s “wokeism” was the beginning of the end for Harris’ election odds.

“The Democratic polling firm, Blueprint, told Democrats months ago that Black voters, a.k.a. their supposedly liberal base, were more likely to find the president too liberal than too conservative,” he said. “They also found that voters didn’t just want Harris to distance herself from Biden, they wanted her to distance herself from what they believe the entire Democratic Party has become—a Portlandia sketch.”

Here’s a clip of Maher’s monologue: