The liberal media were irate Wednesday night after President Trump called for civility, unity, and for the media to turn down their own heated rhetoric. A lot of CNN’s prime time line up after that point involved them berating the President for his own rhetoric and tone deafly denying they needed to take any such action. And during the first hour of CNN Tonight, D.C. political news veteran David Gregory laughably declared that the media was “not responsible for creating a tone,” the President was.

Coming back from a commercial break, host Don Lemon huffed about how Trump was “ramping up his attacks on the media tonight, suggesting the media is contributing to what he calls endless hostility.”

“Do you think it was appropriate for the President to continue to hold this rally tonight on a day when someone tried to kill two former U.S. Presidents, former secretary of state, a former attorney general, and a congresswoman,” he asked Gregory.

Gregory responded by groaning about how he was “well past being surprised by, you know, this President's approach to those kinds of political norms.” After claiming he gave the President “his due” when he thought Trump did “the right thing”, Gregory said he wished Trump “could accept more and be more self-reflective, more presidential. I think it was completely inappropriate.”

Earlier in the program, Gregory tried to portray himself as someone open to criticism of the media, claiming: “I'm willing to engage in all kinds of press criticism. I'm willing to take responsibility for our role writ-large in the political culture.”

But he was not at all willing to listen to the criticism coming from the President. “I'm not willing to have this conversation with the leader of the free world who cannot own his own behavior and his own rhetoric,” he complained. Gregory would walk away from his claim that he would consider the media’s “role writ-large in the political culture.”

“By the way, the press's job, the media's job, is not to create a tone in this country. The media's job is to cover power and seek accountability, to ask tough questions, and to do it fairly,” Gregory indignantly proclaimed a short time later. “We are not responsible for creating a tone. He creates the tone. Politicians create the tone.” This coming from the guy who broke a D.C. gun law to push liberal efforts for gun control.

He then suggested that the media were merely “part of that context” and their “job” was to “try to hold leaders accountable.” “And so for him to try to dictate what we should be doing, he should do his own job, which should not include injecting a level of toxicity into public discourse as he does. Even when he has legitimate grievances with the press or political opponents,” Gregory spat.

But CNN were masters of setting the tone against the President. In 2017, CNN media reporter Brian Stelter often urged people to start questioning Trump’s mental fitness. He then praised the media when they finally did, earlier this year. And on Thursday, CNN ran completely ridiculous chyrons setting the tone that the bomber(s) had gone after “Trump’s targets” like they were given marching orders.

Gregory’s assertion that the media never sets a tone was laughable. How would he explain The Washington Post’s “democracy dies in darkness” declaration after Trump’s inauguration? What a joke. This is CNN.

The transcript is below, click "expand" to read: