In recent days and weeks, President Trump has made broad and swift moves on policies ranging from immigration to tariffs to looking to pull out of Syria. All of these policy actions are popular with the President’s base (aka blue collar working Americans). But during Wednesday night’s edition of Anderson Cooper 360, CNN ran a ridiculous report about what Trump was doing and who he was doing it for. With all the sober seriousness of a report about corruption, CNN reported on Trump playing to his base.

“President Trump's tweets over the past few days have taken aim at many targets, Amazon, the media, former President Obama to name just a few. But in a very real sense,” a cautious-sounding Cooper began the segment. “He's playing to a single audience, his political base.”

Cooper handed it off to CNN correspondent Randi “Kush” Kaye, who kicked off her report with a clip of Trump talking about how small-town retailers were going out of business. “If the President is trying to impress his base, comments like that may do the trick,” she quipped as she noted Trump’s personal feud with Amazon and Washington Post owner Jeff Bezos. “But Trump, in going after Amazon, is also defending brick and mortar retailers, which he says are getting squeezed.”

Sounding as if she was trying to break down a complex quid-pro-quo plot, Kaye explained to CNN’s viewers why Trump cared about sure retailers:

Those retailers in many cases, mom and pop shops, part of what Donald Trump sees as his base. His effort to keep his supporters in middle America and elsewhere happy may explain some of his recent rhetoric about tariffs too, sounding more like he did during the campaign.

“Trump's move to slap tariffs on China was a nod to his base,” Kaye noted. “Now farmers who largely supported Trump could get hurt” due to China’s own threat to apply tariffs to U.S. made goods.

“And what about immigration,” Kaye wondered as she was getting ready to tac yet another node onto this vast constituency pleasing conspiracy. After noting how Trump had been open to a deal for DACA, which the Democrats punted on, she lamented how “once again [Trump] is taking a harder stance” and suggested he was “stoking fears for the upcoming midterms like he did during the campaign.”

Kaye also had a warning about the insidious reason why Trump wanted to send the National Guard down to the U.S.-Mexico border:

And those National Guard troops the President plans to send to help shore up the southern border with Mexico? Border security is an issue that won him lots of support during the campaign, and he's playing to that base again.

“Promises in the year 2018 that sound a lot like 2016,” she concluded.

The seriousness in which CNN reported on Trump trying to please the people who elected him would be comical if it wasn’t so pathetic. CNN’s report was largely tailored to coastal elitists who had to have it explained to them why those policies were popular in flyover country. This is CNN.

Transcript below, click expand to read: