A weekly theme of CNN’s Reliable Sources is that “democracy is dying in darkness” under Trump. So naturally, host Brian Stelter turned to Washington Post columnist and CNN analyst Catherine Rampell to discuss the so-called “Constitutional crisis.” Host Brian Stelter opened the segment by declaring that “democracy in the United States is being tested” and Stelter asked Rampell to sum up the past week in a headline.

Rampell didn’t choose an objective headline. She chose “the frog has been boiled,” referring to “this old adage that if you put a frog in a pot of water and you slowly raise the temperature, the frog won’t jump out...because they don’t get that they’re about to be boiled.”

Trump is killing the American people....slowly. And they’re as dumb as a frog.

Rampell argued that the public has become “inured” to the idea that “Trump is just going to break norms, break laws, violate the Constitution, (and) violate pretty clear statutes.” Rampell complained that rather than see Trump’s behavior as “a threat to democracy” or “a Constitutional crisis,” many voters dismiss it as “Trump being Trump” and “drama playing out.”

Stelter’s three panelists all shared a disgust with Trump and a serious fear that the American people aren’t equipped to process the information they need to share that disgust.

Jess McIntosh, a Hillary Clinton aide turned CNN commentator, lamented that “Trump is banking that you can’t keep up. I think the, the, the headline from this week is that there were too many headlines and he is absolutely putting all of his faith in the fact that the American people do not have the time to follow all of the twists and turns.”

Stelter asked “what do you want the press to do differently?” The Democrat said “What I really want is to put some pressure on the Republican Party at this point.” What? CNN and the rest of the “mainstream” media hasn’t put any pressure on the Republicans up until now?

The third member of the panel, Princeton University professor Julian Zelizer, wrote an article for the Post with the headline “Democrats are complicit if they don’t impeach Trump.” After Zelizer declared that “I think we are at the moment of impeachment proceedings,” Stelter reminded him: “we’re not actually there in Washington.” Zelizer proceeded to roll out his headline to sum up the past week: “It’s time for Congress to act. I don’t think we can depend on the public to sort through everything. That is why we have a House of Representatives.”

The segment concluded with a discussion about a training session for Democrats in the House of Representatives called “Winning on Fox News.” McIntosh served as “one of the media trainers” for that event and expanded on her role in the seminar after Stelter asked her “what did you share?”

According to McIntosh, “there is a necessary debate happening in the Democratic Party about whether or not it is appropriate to lend legitimacy to Fox News.” She went on to refer to the network as “the propaganda arm of the Republican Party.” That might qualify as an example of the pot calling the kettle black. They can’t imagine that all this Trump Is Killing Democracy stuff sounds like the “propaganda arm” of the Democratic Party.

As usual, Stelter could not manage to find one right-of-center guest for the panel. The anti-Trump hysteria continued towards the end of the show as Stelter interviewed Carl Bernstein, who doubled down on the hysterical Democratic talking points uttered in this segment.

A transcript of the relevant of Sunday’s edition of Reliable Sources is below. Click “expand” to read more.