Anderson Cooper wants the world — and, in particular, Rep. Raul Labrador — to know: He carries no water for any political party.
Unlike, you know, those other guys.
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Cooper pleaded his own impartiality — and the alleged lack thereof among his competitors — during his CNN show on Monday, while discussing the heated debate over the Affordable Care Act with Labrador, a Republican representative from Idaho.
During the pair’s back-and-forth, Labrador criticized Cooper and his media colleagues, claiming that the media was trying to compel the Republican party to bend to the Democrats’ wishes in the Obamacare debate.
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“Nobody in the media ever asked [former Speaker of the House] Nancy Pelosi to pass the prerogatives of the Republican party,” Labrador asserted. “All of a sudden, just because you don’t like the fact that Republicans are in charge of the House of Representatives, you want to make sure that the Republicans actually pass the Democrats’…,”
That was enough to set off Cooper, who proceeded to dish out a lesson on unbiased reporting to the gentleman from Idaho.
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“I don’t have a stake in this!” Cooper shot back. “This is the way it works in journalism. When you’re not on Fox News, you get contentious interviews. When you’re not on MSNBC and a liberal, you get contentious interviews. My job is to ask you questions that are different than you think, just as my next guest, who’s a Democrat, I’m gonna ask the same kinds of questions that push back on their position. That’s what a journalist does. I’m not on the side of the Democrats here, and in a minute you’ll see that I’m not taking the side of the Republicans.”
Watch Cooper and Labrador go at it in the video.