During a CNN panel discussion on Sunday, host Boris Sanchez noted that former President Richard Nixon reportedly used to pace the White House’s halls talking to the paintings of presidents who came before him. Conservative commentator David Gergen replied by joking that instead of talking to the paintings, like Nixon did, in Trump’s mind, they’re talking back.
After losing the election to Joe Biden, Trump has been wandering around the White House “like mad King George, muttering, ‘I won. I won. I won,’” according to a Washington Post report published on Saturday. The report revealed that aides decided to keep quiet and let him believe whatever he wanted to believe.
“This reminds me of the stories about Richard Nixon walking the halls overnight at the White House and talking to portraits of former presidents on the walls,” recalled CNN host Boris Sanchez.
“Some resemblance,” said Gergen, who served during the Nixon administration. “The word was in the Nixon White House, the president talked to pictures on the wall, and for the first time in history, the pictures spoke back to the president [Trump].”
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Sanchez burst into laughter.
“Listen, this Trump interview today would be laughable were it not so dangerous,” Gergen turned to say. “To have a president of the United States intentionally sabotaging his successor, trying to tie his hands in one way or the other across various fields and making it harder to deal with. It’s just harder to deal with Republicans. If Joe Biden comes to you and says he wants to cut deals with the Republicans, and then the Republicans hear from their base who believe that Biden is fraudulently elected and should not be there, they’ll put a kibosh on everything they can about trying to cooperate with this guy.”
“He’s a fraud. Well, ‘A,’ he’s not a fraud but ‘B’, it’s damaging to democracy when a major figure like Trump gets this chance of undermining the institutions of our society, undermine the voting process. Undermine the goodwill that goes into so many of these people who work the polls every day and so many of the recounts,” Gergen continued. “You know, it is just — it is very dangerous to our democracy. One of the best things about January 20th, Donald Trump is going to have his bully pulpit stripped away from him on January 20th and up until that, it’s up to the media to decide how much publicity this guy deserves.”
Watch the exchange below via CNN:
