Anderson Cooper Apologizes for Being Blunt—But Accurate—with Pro-Trump Talking Head

In their efforts to appear balanced when covering this runaway train of a Trump administration, CNN must really be hard-pressed to find a guest commentator who supports the president, yet speaks with any clarity, integrity, and most of all, honesty. It’s literally an impossible assignment.

CNN’s solution to this dilemma for the past few months has been Jeffrey Lord, a political strategist and Reaganite who comes across as a Pennsylvania used car salesman in an expensive suit from the ’80s. He is the classic mindless talking head and apologist.

It can’t be easy for CNN host Anderson Cooper, therefore, to pretend to enjoy this back-and-forth banter with Lord anytime a new Trump controversy breaks, which at this point is multiple times a day.

On behalf of millions of his viewers, Cooper on Friday expressed what everyone has been thinking about Lord, and with an appropriate metaphor: “If he took a dump on his desk you would defend it,” Cooper said, referring to the president and his lapdog Lord.

The comment caught Lord, who was somewhere off in the Trump spin zone, off guard. But he seemed to take it in stride, laughing at Cooper’s temporary lapse in CNN “objectivity.” It also earned Cooper quite a bit of admiration from viewers and fans online. Nevertheless, Cooper quickly apologized on-air, and then followed up with another apology on Twitter:

While I believe Cooper is genuinely sorry, can we really blame him? If apologies are in order, shouldn’t they be made to the American public—and our allies abroad—over the normalization of a candidate, and then president, who clearly doesn’t deserve to be treated with professionalism? This metaphor was more than apt, and no apologies are required, Anderson.