"They learned nothing and forgot nothing."
Those famous words have been attributed to the 19th century French diplomat Talleyrand, supposedly in reference to the Bourbon dynasty that replaced Napoleon.
But he could have been referring to CNN in the age of Donald Trump.
Looking back on the 2016 election, the network's former chief Jeff Zucker admitted that it was a "mistake" for CNN to have run Trump rallies, live and uninterrupted, and to have allowed him to "say outrageous things, or say things that weren't true."
Yet Wednesday night, seven years on from that car-crash coverage, CNN and CEO Chris Licht offered the twice-impeached and newly indicted ex-president, who was also found liable of defamation and sexual abuse just this week, another live prime-time platform to once again "say outrageous things, or say things that weren't true."
This is a preview of Mehdi Hasan's latest article. Read the full column here.
