Greg Sargent: An epic 'Meet the Press' rant unmasks the real goal of Trump's lies

[Dennis Donovan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2019/11/11/an-epic-on-air-rant-unmasks-real-goal-trumps-lies/

By Greg Sargent Opinion writer

November 11, 2019 at 10:03 a.m. EST

The public phase of the impeachment inquiry is set to begin this week, and it will shock you to learn that House Republicans are pushing for it to include testimony from numerous people who are not in a position to shed any light whatsoever on President Trump’s conduct.

Republicans want to question Joe Biden’s son Hunter and other figures at the center of a nexus of conspiracy theories and lies that Trump and his propagandists have long employed to misdirect Americans away from Trump’s own bottomless corruption.

A remarkable and important series of exchanges on “Meet the Press” — including an epic rant from a Democrat about our media’s both-sidesing tendencies — demonstrates the true nature of the game plan we’re about to see from Trump and Republicans.

It all started when Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) offered a spectacularly disingenuous new defense of Trump’s corruption. First, Paul claimed Trump was right to withhold military aid from Ukraine, because Trump truly believed that Biden was, in fact, corrupt.

Then Paul insisted that in pressuring Ukraine to undertake “investigations” of Biden, Trump was doing the same thing Biden did when he withheld aid to oust a Ukrainian prosecutor. Trump’s propagandists have twisted that act into a tale of Biden-and-son corruption that is entirely fabricated. Trump extorted Ukraine to force it to somehow make that fabrication true.

Finally, Paul did concede Trump pressured a foreign country to investigate a political rival, but added that Hillary Clinton “hired a British spy to hire Russians to get dirt called the Steele Dossier,” and equated that with Trump’s conduct.

NBC News’s Chuck Todd seemed to allow Paul’s basic framing to stand unchallenged, saying at one point: “So two wrongs make a right?” That prompted this remarkable pushback from Rep. Jim Himes (D-Conn.), which you should watch in full:

Link to tweet

Jesse Lee ✔ @JesseCharlesLee

.@RandPaul tries to “both sides” Trump and Biden, Chuck Todd nods along, and @jahimes just burns it all down.

11:05 AM - Nov 10, 2019

</snip>

[MFGsunny]

1. Himes is another Dem jewel in the crown of fidelity to truth and communication clarity! n/t

[NewJeffCT]

9. even though he's in the middle of the Democratic caucus

in terms of how progressive he is, Himes was the first person in the Connecticut delegation to support the impeachment inquiry - well before the other four joined him.

[MFGsunny]

11. Thanks for that "first" info ....... very good to know. n/t

[calimary]

24. He's one of the good guys.

Nobody’s perfect. But at the moment I can’t think of an area in which I disagree with him.

[saidsimplesimon]

2. Chuck Toad, fails to deliver for MSNBC

That is his destiny. imo

[Brainfodder]

7. Chuck's interview style has been a bit OFF, agreed!

Let's the talking points go unchallenged a bit too much, we noticed!

I don't watch MSNBC unless there is big news, but then it's just to get another take, like it should be, no one should be using 1 source for news, that's how you become a partisan, anger management challenged dolt?

Chuck is trying too hard to MAKE news?

[spanone]

3. K&R...👍🏼 Thank you Senator Himes.

[unblock]

28. he's in the house, not the senate. he's my congressman, ct-4.

[spanone]

31. Oops!

thanks

[montanacowboy]

4. Chuck Toad is a dumb POS

elevated to his job for what? because of his brilliant knowledge of foreign affairs, or his ability to interview guests to get to the truth? He is and always has been a low brow piece of shit, always coddling the repukian view point.

MSNBC, get rid of this louse. He stinks your house up, and while you are at it, throw Andrea Ms. Greenspan into the trash.

Jim Himes is worth 10,000 Chuck Toads

[mr_lebowski]

8. +10000

[Cosmocat]

16. His low wattage grey matter capacity is met inversely by

his sense of self importance ...

[lunatica]

19. He's a blivit

10 lbs of shit in a 5 lb bag.

[EveHammond13]

20. MSNBC pro-trump execs like Lack and Griffin like him

[Perseus]

18. I will raise mr_lebowsky....100000

Yes, I wish Todd would disappear from TV, he is another tool, has no balls.

[katmondoo]

25. I cannot stand his arrogant face and know it all expression.

[True Blue American]

43. To think NBC replaced David Gregory

With Chuck Todd the guy does not even have College eduction, has zero personality is proof there are rocks upstairs at NBC. How many good ones have they lost?

Joe and MIka, same rhetoric every morning, Joe tirades, MIka nice, same panelists.

[Snoopy 7]

45. Kinda

MSNBC has been moving right for sometime now, go back to when it first aired and see the Progressive/Left leaning commentators they employed. They slowly weeded them out and started bringing in the right leaning commentators, experts, and flat out opinion staff. Long gone are the Schultz (RIP), Jenk's, Al Sharpton, Joy Reed (took her off prime time). Now who do they have Micka & Joe (who helped get Trump elected and were with trump on his inauguration day), Andria Mitchell, Matthews (republican), and about 75% of the commentators/experts are republicans. I always point out the republicans to my wife, she doesn't know who they are, just so she can see/hear their opinion and know what they have the opinion they have. Ever since the right realized how bad Saint Reagan screwed them they have been coming to the Democratic Party, I tell them to stay and FIX THEIR PARTY. Well we can see they didn't take the advice and now we have three party's- Progressive (used to be the Democratic Party), Democratic party (Republican Lite) & the Republican party (far right ideological extremist)...

[Mike 03]

5. MSNBC should have traded Chuck Todd for Shep Smith. nt

[kag]

12. Oh, yes!

Chuck is worthless. Shep would be a great addition to MSNBC.

[2naSalit]

15. They should have.

Maybe we can convince them that they should.

[True Blue American]

44. Great idea!

As soon as Shep can!

I am a fan of Ali Velshi, Nicolle Wallace and Larry O’ Donnell.

I do not like constant hysteria.

[BuffaloJackalope]

6. Both wrongs are on Trump's side, though.

[gulliver]

10. Everything, including the transcript, will be given a falsely equivalent counterexample.

Trump's trying to add a second, possibly non-incriminating transcript, now to dilute the smoking gun transcript. It's all extremely cunning. Trump will continue saying, "read the transcript," and Fox News will emphasize the one that plays the best for them.

[2naSalit]

13. K&R!

[crickets]

14. More public pantsing re bothsiderism is called for - bring media to account.

Media is not policing itself and needs the scolding. Jim Himes set the example; if only more would follow it.

[calimary]

21. I SOOOOOO agree!

In far too many cases by now, we’ve gone so far overboard in the equal time/both sides pursuit that it starts to look unreasonable. Questionable. Unjustifiable.

I like the analogy in which the Flat Earth Society gets a seat at the table in a NASA conference. NO. There is no legitimate and even halfway reasonable to include dipshit groups like the Flat Earth Society in NASA-anything. They just do not belong. They’re so deeply and intrinsically opposite that they’re not even in the same - um - universe!

[sop]

32. Had this media False Equivalency policy been around during the Holocaust,

Hitler's mouthpieces would have been allowed on the radio to present "their side of the story."

[ArchTeryx]

42. They were.

Part of it was that one of the Nazi's first acts in power was the seizure and complete subjugation of the German media, aided and abetted by the "titans of industry" (sound familiar?) There was no "both sides." There was only Hitler's propaganda. Any media outlet that dared to not state the talking points unchallenged quickly had its editors shot on the street or shipped off to the death camps.

And the Republicans of the time were watching and taking careful notes.

[Fla Dem]

17. About time someone gave Toadie a slap up the side of his head for his kowtowing

to the Republican liars and propaganda.

[LudwigPastorius]

22. "Epic rant" is a rather pejorative description of the compelling...

correction delivered by Representative Himes.

He was completely factual and never lost his cool.

I wish that Greg Sargent, or the WaPo headline writers, had injected less click-bait-ey spin in this case.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

27. I agree. There was no ranting, just an even-tempered, clear, factual explanation

of what was going on. I hate it when clickbait adjectives are used to describe something inaccurately like this. (Raw Story is probably the worst offender.)

[ecstatic]

47. +1. Rep Himes was excellent,

but with the headline, I went in expecting a fire and brimstone type response. Lol.

I'm so disappointed in Chuck returning to his mediocre, idiotic and unquestioning interview style after his epic showdowns with "Senators" Johnson and Kennedy. Did the rethuglicans threaten to boycott his show? SMH!

[LiberalLovinLug]

23. I "love" how Chuck has to quickly cut him off and change the subject

Complete with the veteran reporter's rude tactic of mumbling and trying to interject and stop him or slow him down as he's talking. You can almost sense Chuck's nervous energy as a guest lays bare all that careful work he did to make sure as to equally charge Democrats with similar level crimes to get his false equivalency badge. So as not to offend any poor Republican snowflakes watching.

[volstork]

26. The fact that chuck todd

works for the same network that formerly employed Chet Huntley and David Brinkley shows just how far NBC has fallen. Chuckles couldn't have gotten a cub reporter slot back in the day.

[LuvNewcastle]

37. Chet Huntley was before my time,

but I liked David Brinkley. Chuck Todd wouldn’t have been fit to bring Brinkley his coffee. Makes me think of the days when Brinkley was on with Sam Donaldson and George Will. People thought Donaldson was mean to Reagan, but he was actually kind to him. There were a lot of things that all of them knew about Reagan’s condition and they didn’t report it.

[gibraltar72]

29. Chuck Todd is and has been a danger to America.

[KPN]

30. How the hell does this idiot Chuck Todd hold the slots he has with NBC.

It’s a disgrace to the media industry having him in the time slots/“news shows” he occupies.

[Mickju]

34. Agree completely

They should have fired his ass a long time ago.

[Mickju]

33. Bravo!!!!

[struggle4progress]

35. OK. We can have "Nepotism in Government" hearings after the Impeachment hearings

[Gothmog]

36. I was happy to see this congressman call Todd out

[Gothmog]

38. Biden Helped Reform Ukraine. Trump Pushed to Make Ukraine Corrupt Again.

Link to tweet

[Cha]

39. Thank you for the Biden "Helped Reform Ukraine"

tweet, Goth!

[BlancheSplanchnik]

40. Bravo, Jim Hines, D-Connecticut. 👏🏾

[Garrett78]

41. Chuck Todd is emblematic of how awful the US media is, for the most part.

Perhaps because the "liberal media" drum got beat for decades with insufficient pushback or perhaps because of media consolidation in the hands of just a few giant corporations, or perhaps because of a combination of both, far too many mainstream media personalities (I hesitate to use the word 'journalists') are utterly irresponsible. And this poses a massive hurdle for truth and justice. Many factors contributed to Trump becoming president, and the media is one of them. Clinton's email "scandal" was somehow worthy of about the same amount of attention as Trump's openly colluding with a foreign adversary, racism, openly bragging about sexual assault, Trump University scam, mocking a person with a disability, and so on. Meanwhile, we hear very little about how various Trumps have used private email for government business, or about how Trump has given his personal cell phone number to foreign leaders (including, one presumes, Vladimir Putin).

Media personalities, when not devoting time to fluff pieces, have a tendency to foster false equivalencies and seem to think giving equal time to lies and obfuscation somehow constitutes fair reporting. It's as if all statements made on the air are equally valid opinions. It's as if media personalities are scared to demonstrate a bias toward fact-based reality. I was heartened to listen to Jim Himes take Todd to task for going along with Rand Paul's false equivalency, though Himes was far too gentle.

We need a lot more of this. Republicans, for decades, used the media to criticize the media. And it proved highly effective. Every Democrat making a public appearance should take any opportunity to change the narrative about the media itself, and not just the narrative about the issue of the day.

And we need to make media/propaganda literacy (verifying sources, identifying tactics such as the Gish gallop, etc.) mandatory curriculum in every school.

[NoMoreRepugs]

46. Great post, u checked all the boxes.

[Garrett78]

48. Thanks.