At roughly the exact moment President Donald Trump was denouncing CNN reporter Jim Acosta as “fake news” on Monday, Acosta’s network was airing what is quickly becoming one of my favorite pundit showdowns in recent memory.
In one corner (specifically, the top left) we have conservative commenter Paris Dennard. To his right is Democratic strategist Keith Boykin. The pair were guests on Brooke Baldwin’s CNN Newsroom, ostensibly to square off over whether Trump’s much-belated condemnation of white supremacy on Monday was sufficient for a nation still reeling from the terrorist attack and race riots that occurred in Charlottesville, VA, over the weekend.
However, as you can see from the clip below, their actual argument quickly went waaaaay off the rails.
If there’s a hero to this whole story, it’s not Dennard or Boykin—both of whom were busy shouting over one another.
Nor is it really host Baldwin, who, at one point after losing control of her own show, simply puts her head in her hands—presumably praying to make it through this segment in one piece.
No. If there’s a hero of this excruciatingly awkward teleplay, it’s Joseph Pinion, AKA “guy on the lower left,” who earned a hug from Baldwin after spending the entire argument silently making faces like:
Same, Joe. Same.