March 19, 2016

In a segment designed to cast Donald Trump as a threat to America’s supposedly well-managed foreign relations under the benevolent and competent stewardship of President Barack Obama, CNN invited three of its international correspondents to relay hostility towards the Republican front-runner from within Russia, China, and Israel. According to CNN, a Trump presidency would be a manifest disaster for America’s foreign policy while posing a “global threat.”

First up was CNN’s Matthew Chance, who asserted that Donald Trump’s campaign had dishonestly dubbed audio simulating a barking dog over video of Hillary Clinton at a campaign event in a recentcampaign ad released on Instagram.

“Then it cuts to Hillary Clinton, Trump’s Democratic Party rival, with the sound of a dog barking, as if it’s her making that noise,” said Chance, denying that Clinton had actually barked like a dog in an attempt at humor.

Acting as if anti-Americanism is not a staple of Vladimir Putin’s political messaging to Russians, and more broadly as if it is not a permanent feature of Russia’s political culture, Chance then implied that supposed lack of amusement from the Kremlin over the aforementioned campaign ad was some sort of new development in Russian politics.

“But I can tell you, the Kremlin isn’t amused. Its spokesman saying that the video demonizes Russia’s image,” said Chance, implying that Trump was inflaming tensions between America and the U.S via the aforementioned ad.

The pearl clutching of Russian officials over allegations of disrespect from Americans is central to the country’s political culture. Indeed, President Barack Obama is regularly castigated by Russian politicians and state media as overly belligerent towards Russia’s people and interests.

Another international correspondent, Matt Rivers, was then invited to frame Trump as incensing Chinese people. Speaking with what appears to be a random English-speaking Chinese woman in Beijing described as representative of “ordinary people” in China, Rivers joined with his CNN colleagues in reinforcing the narrative of Trump as an offender of global sensibilities.

“Most of the people in the U.S., they cannot get a job. So they need to hate Chinese people. That’s why [Trump] says Chinese people is cheating the United States,” said the Chinese woman, dutifully parroting a the fused narratives of CNN and China’s state media.

Referencing an op-ed published by a Chinese state-run newspaper denigrating Trump as a “racist” and a “clown,” Rivers attempted to build up the ubiquity of global perceptions of Trump as mirroring those of CNN’s left-wing misrepresentations.

In Israel, CNN’s Oren Liebermann described Trump as “divisive” before falsely stating that the New York City billionaire has called for a governmental registration of Muslims. Referencing out-of-context photographs of Trump rallies showing supporters with raised arms, Liebermann then forwarded the lie of Nazi-like salutes being a part of the real estate mogul’s campaign.

Ignoring Israel’s rightwards shift, Liebermann then implied that Hillary Clinton was the beneficiary of her husband’s supposed popularity within the Jewish state, referencing a left-wing rally in Tel-Aviv for the former president as evidence.

It may not be Trump who’s the most popular candidate here. Clinton may very well outpace him. Analysts here say she still pulls a lot of the popularity of Bill Clinton. When he spoke at a rally here late last year, the crowd went wild for him,” said Liebermann.

In its final chyron, CNN declared, “RISK REPORT: TRUMP PRESIDENCY POSES GLOBAL THREAT.”

Co-written with Robert Kraychik. Follow him on Twitter.