CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper grilled New York City Democratic Mayor Bill de Blasio for attacking President Donald Trump&#8217;s response to the COVID-19 outbreak while de Blasio seemingly did even less to prepare New York City.
Tapper played a clip of de Blasio from just two weeks ago where the mayor encouraged people to go out in public and to not worry about the COVID-19 outbreak.
&#8220;In retrospect, is that message, at least in part, to blame for how rapidly the virus has spread across the city?&#8221; Tapper asked.
&#8220;Jake, we should not be focusing, in my view, on anything looking back on any level of government right now,&#8221; de Blasio responded. &#8220;This is just about how we save lives going forward. We all were working, everybody was working with the information we had, and trying, of course, to avoid panic, and at that point, for all of us, trying to keep – not only protect lives, but keep the economy and the livelihoods together, keep ensuring that people had money to pay for food and medicine.&#8221;
Several moments later, Tapper pressed de Blasio, &#8220;So – but, Mr. Mayor, you say you don&#8217;t think you should look backwards, but you have criticized President Trump for &#8216;actions that are far, far behind the curve.'&#8221;
&#8220;I mean, Mr. Mayor, weren&#8217;t your actions in this outbreak also far, far behind the curve?&#8221; Tapper asked.
&#8220;Jake, I, in real time, said – and this was weeks and weeks ago, as it was happening – that we were not being given the testing we needed,&#8221; de Blasio said. &#8220;I think the big historical point here that will be looked back on is, if this country had had the testing when we needed it, this could have been a very different reality.&#8221;
The New York Post <a href="https://nypost.com/2020/03/20/city-hall-didnt-order-covid-19-supplies-for-nyc-until-march-6/">reported</a> a little over a week ago that de Blasio’s New York City did not place &#8220;its first order for emergency protective gear until March 6.&#8221;
The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/16/nyregion/coronavirus-bill-de-blasio.html">reported</a> that de Blasio&#8217;s response to the outbreak was so inadequate that members of his staff threatened to quit if he did not start taking it more seriously.
WATCH:
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CNN’s Jake Tapper calls out NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio for his comments, handling of coronavirus <a href="https://t.co/kg11Bz9bmA">pic.twitter.com/kg11Bz9bmA</a>
&mdash; Steve Guest (@SteveGuest) <a href="https://twitter.com/SteveGuest/status/1244287658345594882?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 29, 2020</a></blockquote>
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>CNN ANCHOR JAKE TAPPER: The CDC is issuing new domestic travel restrictions for the New York region, as New York City sets up makeshift morgues for the first time in that city since 9/11.
Joining me now is the mayor of New York City, Bill de Blasio.
Mayor de Blasio, thanks for joining us.
The CDC now telling residents of New York to refrain from nonessential domestic travel for 14 days, effective immediately.
What&#8217;s your reaction?
BILL DE BLASIO (D), MAYOR OF NEW YORK: Jake, actually, I don&#8217;t think it&#8217;s the most central question before us right now, because I&#8217;m just entirely focused on making sure we have what we need to save lives in New York City.
The only comment I&#8217;d have on it is, we have got to be mindful of families that, at this crucial moment, want to reunite, whether that means families coming back to New York or leaving New York to go to another place where they&#8217;re based.
We have got to be really respectful of, in the middle of a crisis, families have a right to be together. And this is going to be a long crisis, Jake. I think this whole discussion of how quickly we can restart is missing just how deep a crisis this is, not only in New York, but it&#8217;s going to spread around the country.
And we should get more girded for the sheer timeline here. But other than that concern, a travel advisory isn&#8217;t something I&#8217;m going to fixate on. I want to know where we&#8217;re going to get the ventilators and the PPEs and the doctors and the nurses to save lives here in New York that would be lost otherwise, because that&#8217;s the standards to me.
Are we going to be able to save every life we can, or do we risk that possibility &#8212; and I&#8217;m saying in a week or two &#8212; do we risk that possibility of losing lives that could have been saved if the equipment and the supplies and the personnel were there when we needed them?
TAPPER: So, let&#8217;s talk about that, because you have been calling for more ventilators, more ICU hospital beds, more masks, more PPE.
Your 911 system in New York City is overwhelmed, with almost twice as many calls as normal. What do you need from the federal government right now? And when do you think you&#8217;re going to run out of the capacity to care for any New Yorker who is sick?
DE BLASIO: So, Jake, I have told the president, the defense secretary, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs, all of them &#8212; and I want to say they have all been very available, very responsive.
I have told them all the same thing, Sunday, April 5. We have enough supplies to get to a week from today, with the exception of ventilators. We&#8217;re going to need at least several hundred more ventilators very quickly.
But we have otherwise the supplies to get to next Sunday. We are going to need a reinforcement by Sunday, April 5, in all categories, especially ventilators, but in other areas as well. And personnel is becoming more and more of the issue.
And I want to say, the military has been very responsive on this. They have a lot of doctors and nurses. I have made a direct request to the president and to the military to find us immediately more military medical personnel and get them here by next Sunday, but also to start figuring out how to get civilian medical personnel from around the country here.
We&#8217;re talking about a sharp escalation ahead. We have got almost 30,000 cases now, over 500 deaths already. We are over a quarter of the nation&#8217;s cases here in New York City.
And I only can guarantee you the next week. That&#8217;s how difficult, that&#8217;s how challenging it is. And our front-line health care workers, Jake, are giving their all. They&#8217;re in harm&#8217;s way. And we need to get them relief. We need to get them support and protection, but also relief.
They can&#8217;t keep up at this pace for weeks and weeks and weeks ahead&#8230;
TAPPER: Right.
DE BLASIO: &#8230; and expect to save lives, the way we need them to.
TAPPER: So, let&#8217;s talk about the way that you have handled the response in New York City.
I want you to take a listen to yourself and your message to New Yorkers. These are three different clips. One is from January, one is from February, and one is from early this month.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DE BLASIO: It&#8217;s important. Just go about your lives. Continue living as you have.
New Yorkers should go about our lives. Continue doing what we do.
This should not stop you from going about your life, should not stop you from going to Chinatown and going out to eat.
We want people still to go on about their lives. We want people to rest assured that a lot is being done to protect them.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: The last clip was from March 13, just about two weeks ago.
In retrospect, is that message, at least in part, to blame for how rapidly the virus has spread across the city?
DE BLASIO: Jake, we should not be focusing, in my view, on anything looking back on any level of government right now.
This is just about how we save lives going forward. We all were working, everybody was working with the information we had, and trying, of course, to avoid panic, and at that point, for all of us, trying to keep &#8212; not only protect lives, but keep the economy and the livelihoods together, keep ensuring that people had money to pay for food and medicine.
[09:35:19]
I mean, this was a very different world just a short time ago.
But the bottom line is, none of us have time to look backwards. I&#8217;m trying to figure out how we get through to Sunday, next Sunday, and then what we do the week after that. And that&#8217;s the only thing we should be talking about in this country.
And, by the way, any other place in this country that thinks this is just going to pass them by and it&#8217;s going to be a nonissue, it&#8217;s in all 50 states now. And what we&#8217;re all learning at the front line is, this moves very, very fast, in a way none of us have ever experienced in our lives.
So, the focus has to be on getting the personnel, the ventilators, the supplies where they need to be. And then, when each region of the country starts to see that improvement, the way Dr. Fauci just described to you, when you actually see the caseloads go down, and you actually have the testing to know what&#8217;s going on, then send those personnel, send those ventilators to the next place that needs them most.
That&#8217;s what we&#8217;re going to have to do. And I think the military is the only part of our nation that can actually organize and engineer such a massive effort.
TAPPER: So &#8212; but, Mr. Mayor, you say you don&#8217;t think you should look backwards, but you have criticized President Trump for &#8212; quote &#8212; &#8220;actions that are far, far behind the curve.&#8221;
I mean, Mr. Mayor, weren&#8217;t your actions in this outbreak also far, far behind the curve?
DE BLASIO: Jake, I, in real time, said &#8212; and this was weeks and weeks ago, as it was happening &#8212; that we were not being given the testing we needed.
I think the big historical point here that will be looked back on is, if this country had had the testing when we needed it, this could have been a very different reality.
But there&#8217;s no time to go back over that. There&#8217;s only time to focus on getting through the next week and the week after that.
I mean, you can ask all the questions you want. They&#8217;re fair, but I think the time to deal with these questions is after this war is over, because, literally, here in New York City, it feels like a wartime environment.
We &#8212; I&#8217;m talking to doctors, nurses, front-line public health leaders. They&#8217;re literally trying to figure out what&#8217;s going to happen just days from now. And they&#8217;re watching an escalation, Jake, that never &#8212; we have never seen in our lives.
The only comparison is to 100 years ago, the Spanish influenza pandemic. The only comparison in terms of our economy and our lives is to the Great Depression. None of us have ever experienced this. We have got to focus on today, tomorrow, next week, if we&#8217;re going to get through this.
TAPPER: Mayor de Blasio, thank you so much. Good luck dealing with the crisis. Our thoughts and prayers are with all of our brothers and sisters in New York City.
DE BLASIO: Thank you very much, Jake.</blockquote>

Jake Tapper

WATCH: Tapper Grills De Blasio For His Hypocrisy In Responding To Coronavirus Outbreak

Bill de Blasio

Coronavirus

COVID-19

It was an embarrassing moment for former Vice President Joe Biden on Tuesday evening when CNN anchor Jake Tapper took time out of their interview to teach the 77-year-old politician how to properly cough to avoid infecting other people.
Biden was appearing on CNN to discuss the coronavirus pandemic when he began coughing. Biden said, “excuse me,” and coughed into his hand.
&#8220;You know, you&#8217;re supposed to cough into your elbow,&#8221; Tapper responded, demonstrating the technique with his elbow. &#8220;I learned that, actually, covering your White House.&#8221;
Most people should have learned that long before the Obama administration.
&#8220;Actually, that&#8217;s true,&#8221; Biden said. &#8220;But fortunately, I&#8217;m alone in my home, but that&#8217;s OK. I agree you&#8217;re right.&#8221;
Unless Biden knows how to work the camera and audio for his home studio, he likely wasn’t alone in his home.
Tapper didn’t accept Biden’s response, instead lecturing the former vice president about his hygiene.
&#8220;It&#8217;s kinda just old school to do it with your hand,&#8221; Tapper said, again demonstrating with his elbow. &#8220;Do it into your elbow. You&#8217;re supposed to do it.&#8221;
“Thank you,” Biden responded.
Tapper had asked Biden at the beginning of the interview whether the former vice president had been tested for the coronavirus.
“No, I have not been tested for the coronavirus, uh, I’ve had, thank God, no symptoms that I’m aware of, that doesn’t mean that can’t happen,” Biden said.
As The Daily Wire recently <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/watch-biden-repeatedly-coughs-gets-confused-during-tuesday-interviews">reported</a>, Biden spent Tuesday coughing through multiple live interviews:
<blockquote>During an interview on ABC’s “The View,” Biden struggled to make a coherent statement about curing the coronavirus, saying, “We have to take care of the cure, that will make the problem worse no matter what.”
During an interview on MSNBC, Biden, who had to repeatedly clear his throat, was showered with praise by leftist Nicolle Wallace.
“Why doesn’t he just act like a president,” Biden said. “That’s a stupid way to say it– sorry.”
“Go ahead,” Wallace responded.
“No, no, it’s probably best I don’t,” Biden responded.</blockquote>
During that interview, which took place after Biden’s interview with Tapper, the former vice president can be seen coughing (not into his elbow) and repeatedly touching his face even though the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends avoiding touching one’s face to stop the spread of the coronavirus.
Grabien founder Tom Elliot collected the interviews into a supercut video showing all of Biden’s coughing through the day’s interviews.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
SUPERCUT!
Biden Coughs, Acts Confused, Throughout ABC/CNN/MSNBC Interviews <a href="https://t.co/GuSA1Fsxst">pic.twitter.com/GuSA1Fsxst</a>
— Tom Elliott (@tomselliott) <a href="https://twitter.com/tomselliott/status/1242580282580107274?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 24, 2020</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
Biden began holding his own shadow briefings on the coronavirus in an effort to show how he would handle the crisis better than President Donald Trump. During his first such briefing, Biden <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/wheres-biden-candidate-missing-from-coronavirus-response-video-which-says-he-would-do-everything-trump-is-doing">didn’t even appear</a>, instead having former White House Ebola Response Coordinator Ron Klain explain what Biden would do to respond to the coronavirus. Klain’s suggestions were no different than what Trump has been doing. On Monday, when Biden gave a live speech he had allegedly practiced for a week regarding the coronavirus, he stumbled when he ran into teleprompter problems. Biden was supposed to show the country how knowledgeable he was about the virus, yet he couldn’t find anything to say without his teleprompter.
&#8220;And, in addition to that, in addition to that we have to make sure that we, we are in a position that we are, well let me go the second thing, I&#8217;ve spoken enough on that,&#8221; Biden said after signaling to his staff that something was wrong with the teleprompter.

Biden Tapper

WATCH: Joe Biden Has To Be Taught How To Properly Cough During Live CNN Interview

Joe Biden

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper called out one of the top 2020 Democratic presidential candidates on Sunday for refusing to do interviews on the Sunday news shows.
At the very end of an interview with Democratic presidential candidate Pete Buttigieg, Tapper called out Joe Biden, 77, for refusing to appear on any of the Sunday morning news shows.
&#8220;And I want to note, you &#8212; I &#8212; we appreciate you coming and taking our questions,&#8221; Tapper told Buttigieg. &#8220;Vice President Biden has yet to do a Sunday show interview. You have done &#8212; and I can&#8217;t even count how many times you have agreed to do interviews, just &#8212; so, thank you for taking our questions. Appreciate it.&#8221;
WATCH:
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TRANSCRIPT:
<blockquote>TAPPER: Former South Bend Indiana Mayor Pete Buttigieg and 2020 presidential candidate joins me right now.
Thanks so much for being here. Really appreciate it.
BUTTIGIEG: Good to be with you.
TAPPER: I want to start with impeachment.
Speaker Pelosi appeared to question the legitimacy of the Senate&#8217;s verdict. Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
QUESTION: Will he be emboldened because the Senate will have acquitted him?
REP. NANCY PELOSI (D-CA): Well, he will not be acquitted. You cannot be acquitted if you don&#8217;t have a trial. And you don&#8217;t have a trial if you don&#8217;t have witnesses and documentation and that.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: Well, as a matter of fact, you know, an acquittal is an acquittal, whether she likes it or not. She&#8217;s making a political argument there, obviously.
Will you see the verdict as legitimate now that the Senate has opted not to have new witnesses?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I think she&#8217;s right that a trial without witnesses is not much of a trial.
TAPPER: Without new witnesses. There have been witnesses.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, but they didn&#8217;t call witnesses to speak, when we knew that there was information.
And, by the way, why would a president who is innocent go to these lengths to suppress evidence? Of course, we know why. And we know what&#8217;s going on, on the floor of the Senate.
And my concern is that that is so exhausting that it may have the effect of discouraging and turning off a lot of Americans about our process right now.
But, as upsetting as what&#8217;s going on in the Senate is, the thing that I&#8217;m always reminding voters of, especially in these closing days of the Iowa caucuses, is that, yes, the Senate is the jury today, but we are the jury tomorrow, and we get to send a message at the ballot box that cheating, lying, involving a foreign country in our own domestic politics, not to mention abuse of power more broadly and bad administration, that that&#8217;s not OK, that we can do better.
And the good news is, I&#8217;m seeing a majority of the American people not only agreeing that this president is not serving this country well, not only agreeing on what we&#8217;re against, but, even more than that, agreeing on what we&#8217;re for, which is making sure that this economy actually works for us, making sure that we take steps to keep this country safe, restore the credibility of the United States.
There&#8217;s a powerful American majority ready to move forward. And that&#8217;s what I&#8217;m seeking to mobilize in this campaign.
TAPPER: Is an acquittal legitimate? Is it a legitimate verdict of acquittal?
BUTTIGIEG: I mean, it counts by the procedures of the Senate, but I don&#8217;t think that it has the legitimacy of vindicating this president, because it&#8217;s very hard even for Republican senators &#8212; and I will be curious to see what they say on television today &#8212; very hard for them to actually look a voter or a camera in the eye and say that this president is a good leader for the United States of America.
TAPPER: Speaker Pelosi also says those Senate Republicans you refer to &#8212; quote &#8212; are &#8220;accomplices&#8221; to the president&#8217;s cover-up because they didn&#8217;t call new witnesses.
Accomplices to the cover-up, do you agree with that? That&#8217;s pretty strong language.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, they&#8217;re going out of their way to protect this president, as if they have forgotten that, when the story is written of their time in power and in office, this is probably going to be the first sentence of it.
Look, there&#8217;s a &#8212; I think a lot of reason to believe that, deep down, many of these senators know better, but the only language they seem to respond to is political power.
[09:05:02]
And so I think the only shockwave that will reunite them with their conscience is a thumping at the ballot box for Donald Trump and those who supported him.
That&#8217;s why it is so important right now, beginning tomorrow evening here in Iowa, that we have a candidate, a nominee, a campaign that can deliver, that can bring together that American majority that is ready for something completely different from a presidency like Donald Trump&#8217;s.
TAPPER: Well, let&#8217;s talk about something completely different, because you have been talking about Vice President Biden in terms of what he offers vs. what somebody newer like yourself does.
Take a listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BUTTIGIEG: I have seen Vice President Biden making the case that we cannot afford to take a risk on somebody new right now.
I believe, at a time like this, the risk we cannot afford to take is to turn to the same Washington mind-set that has brought us to this point, and expect that to work against a president like Donald Trump.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
TAPPER: It sounds like you do not expect that, if Vice President Biden gets the nomination, that he will be able to beat President Trump.
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I certainly think that I am better positioned to beat Donald Trump than any of my competitors.
Look&#8230;
TAPPER: Do you think Biden can win?
BUTTIGIEG: What&#8217;s that?
TAPPER: Do you think Biden can win, can beat Trump?
BUTTIGIEG: Look, I&#8217;m going to support the nominee of my party. And I&#8217;m hoping that it will be me.
TAPPER: But I&#8217;m not asking that.
I&#8217;m asking, do you think he can do it? Do you think he can beat Trump? Or is he going to &#8212; will turnout not be sufficient?
BUTTIGIEG: Here&#8217;s my concern.
If you look at the lessons of history, over the last-half century, every time that we have won, every time my party has won the White House, it has been with a candidate who is new in national politics, who doesn&#8217;t work in Washington or at least hadn&#8217;t been there very long, and who was opening the door to a new generation of leadership.
I think that&#8217;s&#8230; (CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: Carter, Clinton, Obama.
BUTTIGIEG: Yes.
TAPPER: They&#8217;re fresh &#8212; fresher faces.
BUTTIGIEG: That is the best way to win.
And at a moment like this, why we &#8212; why would we take a chance on anything else? Let&#8217;s put together the best campaign to beat Donald Trump.
TAPPER: Speaking of taking a chance, your campaign also sent out an e-mail this week warning your supporters about the fact that Bernie Sanders is rising the polls.
It said that &#8212; quote &#8212; &#8220;Bernie is surging.&#8221; And it added &#8212; quote &#8212; &#8220;We have to beat Donald Trump. And we cannot risk nominating a candidate who cannot.&#8221;
Why can&#8217;t Bernie Sanders beat Donald Trump?
BUTTIGIEG: Look, I think a politics that says that you&#8217;re either for status quo or you&#8217;re for revolution leaves most Americans out.
Most of the people I&#8217;m talking to are on board with big changes. As a matter of fact, one of the historic facts about America today is, for example, we have a strong American majority that is ready to see the public sector step up and ensure there&#8217;s no such thing as an uninsured American, just not crazy about the idea of kicking people off their private plans.
And it&#8217;s one example of issue after issue where we have a chance to energize a powerful majority. We can&#8217;t afford to polarize it at a moment like this.
And it&#8217;s just not true that you would have to choose between the status quo or a total revolution. There&#8217;s another way. And that other way happens to be what most Democrats and what most Americans want.
TAPPER: So, you think Bernie Sanders would lose to Trump, because he&#8217;s too revolutionary?
BUTTIGIEG: I think that &#8212; I think that I would have a better chance of defeating Donald Trump.
TAPPER: Well, in terms of bringing people in, you have been struggling &#8212; we have talked about this before &#8212; over your ability to win over voters of color.
A new national poll this week puts you at zero percent among black voters &#8212; this is the Quinnipiac poll &#8212; vs. 49 percent for Vice President Biden. Amidst all this, &#8220;The New York Times&#8221; reported this week that staff members of color on your campaign say they feel disrespected, because some of your senior aides don&#8217;t listen to their concerns, their ideas.
Do you think you bear any responsibility for that on your campaign?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, if you look at that story, it actually talks about the proactive steps that our campaign took to make sure that staffers of color are heard and to make sure that we have a diverse campaign.
More than 40 percent of the staff on our campaign are people of color doing a phenomenal job and need to be supported and deserve to be supported. So, we have taken steps that maybe, in history and in historical campaigns, haven&#8217;t been done, creating conversations and spaces for workers who are facing the challenges that I think any person of color in the workplace today is dealing with and making sure we&#8217;re responsive to this.
TAPPER: What was your personal reaction when you read that story? I mean, were you upset? Were you hurt? Did you reach out to people on your staff of color who &#8212; who &#8212; to see what their concerns are?
BUTTIGIEG: Yes, my focus was to make sure that &#8212; that members of the staff, especially staff of color, felt supported, because they were bringing their experience and their perspective to this campaign.
And we&#8217;re a better campaign because of it.
TAPPER: After you were recently asked about choosing a running mate, you said &#8212; quote &#8212; &#8220;I want to make sure that there is the diversity there in terms of background, racial and gender diversity.&#8221;
That sounds like you&#8217;re committing to choosing, as a running mate, a woman of color. Am I reading that right?
BUTTIGIEG: Well, I don&#8217;t want to say anything that would disqualify anybody from being considered.
But what I will say is that a top consideration, not only for a running mate and for a vice president, but in building a Cabinet, is making sure that we have the gender, racial, professional, and regional diversity to really reflect this diverse country that we are.
TAPPER: One of your closing arguments in Iowa is that you can win over Republican voters.
I know a number of your precinct captains are former Trump voters, something like 40-something. But Republicans are &#8212; have been seizing, including in a new Trump ad, on a statement you made, saying &#8212; quote &#8212; &#8220;Anyone who supported this president is at best looking the other way on racism.&#8221;
[09:10:04]
You have also said that on my show. That&#8217;s almost 63 million Americans who you&#8217;re painting with a pretty broad brush. Do you regret saying that at all?
BUTTIGIEG: No, I&#8217;m very concerned about the racial division that this president has fostered.
And I&#8217;m meeting a lot of voters who are no longer willing to look the other way on that, looking for a new political home. And I think it&#8217;s one of the reasons why we have seen so many people &#8212; in addition to the die-hard Democrats who are coming to our events, we&#8217;re seeing independents and a remarkable number of people who tell me they are those future former Republicans that I like to talk about in our campaign.
And it&#8217;s not that I&#8217;m pretending to be more conservative than I am. It&#8217;s that we can agree &#8212; if we don&#8217;t agree on everything, we can at least agree on turning the page and moving past what this president has done to this country.
And as we recruit precinct captains, as we reach out one more time to caucus-goers, as we mobilize nationally, anybody who supports the vision of this campaign, folks I&#8217;m asking right now to go to PeteforAmerica.com and support us financially to make sure that we can go the distance, we are building the coalition capable of not just ending the Trump presidency, but leading America beginning on that first day when the Trump presidency goes into the history books.
As we face challenges the likes of which our country hasn&#8217;t seen, now is our chance to do something about that and look to the future.
TAPPER: And you got your Web site address in there also.
BUTTIGIEG: Part of my job.
TAPPER: Congratulations.
Thanks so much.
And I want to note, you &#8212; I &#8212; we appreciate you coming and taking our questions.
Vice President Biden has yet to do a Sunday show interview. You have done &#8212; and I can&#8217;t even count how many times you have agreed to do interviews, just &#8212; so, thank you for taking our questions. Appreciate it
&nbsp;</blockquote>

WarnerMedia Upfront 2019 &#8211; Show

WATCH: CNN’s Tapper Calls Out Top 2020 Democratic Presidential Candidate For Refusing Interviews

Pete Buttigieg

On Sunday, responding to CNN’s Jake Tapper on &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; consistently attacking President Trump’s decision to kill Iranian general Qassem Soleimani as Tapper kept pressing about the intelligence that showed the arch-terrorist was an imminent threat, Defense Secretary Mark Esper, quietly exasperated, finally snapped, “I&#8217;d rather be here discussing this topic with you than going up to Dover Air Force Base and standing there while flag-draped coffins come home.”
The exchange that prompted Esper’s remark went like this:
Tapper: So let&#8217;s start with &#8212; President Trump said on Friday the Iranians were plotting to target four U.S. embassies, including the one in Baghdad. Other administration officials say the intelligence was not that specific. Was there specific intelligence that the Iranians were plotting to attack four U.S. embassies?
Esper: Well, let me say one thing up front first, to your viewers, to the American people. The United States is safer today than we were just a few short weeks ago. Why? Because we eliminated the world&#8217;s foremost terrorist, Qasem Soleimani, who had the blood of hundreds of American service members on his hands.
Secondly, we restored deterrence with Iran. And we did so without American casualties. And, third, we reassured our friends and allies in the region that the United States will stand up and defend our interests. And I want to thank all of our brave service members who are deployed 
for what they did, for their brilliance in executing this very important mission.
Tapper: Okay, what about the intelligence? Was there specific intelligence the Iranians were plotting to target four U.S. Embassies?
Esper: There was intelligence that they had; there was an intent to target the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad. What the president said with regard to the four embassies is what I believe as well. And he said he believed that they probably, that they could have been targeting the embassies in the region. I believe that as well, as did other national security team members. That is why I deployed thousands of additional paratroopers to the region to reinforce our embassy in Baghdad and to reinforce other locations throughout the region.
Tapper: Well, Soleimani was a horrible guy, and he killed a lot of innocent people, and he killed a lot of U.S. soldiers. There&#8217;s no question about any of that. But&#8230;
Esper: For 20-plus years.
Tapper: But the question is not whether he posed a threat in an existential way, because he did. I mean he&#8217;d been doing it for years. But was there specific intelligence that he was plotting to attack four U.S. embassies? Did you see any intelligence like that?
Esper: I&#8217;m not going to discuss intelligence matters here on the show. Let me just say&#8230;
Tapper: The president did, though.
Esper: It&#8217;s the president&#8217;s prerogative. But what the president said was, he believed. He said he could have been targeting, all those things that I believe as well, that the national security team believes as well. The important thing is this. Soleimani orchestrated, resourced, directed the attacks, escalating up to the December 1 that killed an American. He orchestrated the siege on the U.S. Embassy in Baghdad, and he was planning this much broader plot in multiple countries that would be bigger in scale, and that likely would have taken us to open hostility with Iran. In fact, a very, very senior intelligence community official said to us that the risk of inaction is greater than risk of action. To me, that is very compelling.
Tapper: The president has discussed probably that he believed — and a belief is not the same thing as there was evidence. I mean, you could believe that Soleimani would have attacked the Eiffel Tower. That&#8217;s not necessarily based in evidence. I mean, he could have been. He posed a threat.
Esper: Well, there was evidence — there was evidence that part of the attack would be against the United States Embassy.
Tapper: In Baghdad?
Esper: In Baghdad.
Tapper: But what about the four embassies?
Esper: I&#8217;m not going to discuss intelligence. What the president said was, he believed it probably could have been. He didn&#8217;t cite intelligence.
Tapper: He said it was his belief. But, I mean, I guess the important matter here is, look, no one is disputing that Soleimani posed an existential threat to innocent people. But the president came out and said that there was that he believed there was a threat to four embassies. Were those four embassies alerted that there was a threat to them?
Esper: All the embassies were alerted. That&#8217;s why I deployed additional troops to the region. And let me say this much, Jake. I&#8217;m glad we&#8217;re having this discussion today, because I&#8217;d rather be here discussing this topic with you than going up to Dover Air Force Base and standing there while flag-draped coffins come home, and I have to explain to husbands and wives, sons and daughters why their service member died, when I had information that could have prevented that from happening.
Video below:
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Defense Secretary Mark Esper And Joint Chiefs Of Staff Chairman Army Gen. Mark Milley Brief The Media At The Pentagon

WATCH: Def Sec Esper Fires At Tapper: ‘I’d Rather Be Here Discussing This Topic With You Than Going Up To Dover Air Force Base And Standing There While Flag-Draped Coffins Come Home’

Mark Esper

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper noted on Sunday during an interview with Oren Segal, Vice President of the Anti-Defamation League&#8217;s (ADL) Center on Extremism, that the anti-Semitic attacks carried out in New York City are largely not being committed by white supremacists, but by &#8220;people of color.&#8221;
The segment on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; came after a mass stabbing attack happened at a rabbi&#8217;s home on Saturday night, which was approximately the 10th anti-Semitic attack to strike the New York City area over the past week or so.
Segal told CNN on Sunday that the anti-Semitic attacks in New York represent &#8220;an epidemic&#8221; for the Jewish community.
&#8220;And so we know that the NYPD&#8217;s Hate Crime Task Force is taking this seriously,&#8221; Segal told CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper. &#8220;But we expect that the Jewish community, the places where they worship, places where Jews gather, will be more protected by law enforcement and others. We still have a long way to go, seeing the spate of anti-Semitism in the city.&#8221;
&#8220;So, this horrific attack last night, it&#8217;s the ninth apparent anti-Semitic attack in New York in just the last week,&#8221; Tapper said. &#8220;Obviously, there has been an increase in hate crimes against Jews in New York and nationally. Why do you think this is happening, specifically the attacks in New York?&#8221;
&#8220;Yes, I mean, for New York City, we have seen a 17 percent increase in anti-Semitic incidents from January through November of this year compared to last year,&#8221; Segal said. &#8220;So, we are indeed seeing a rise. And the answer of why is difficult. The mainstreaming of anti-Semitism in our public discussion, on our phones, I think, plays a part to it.&#8221;
&#8220;So, it appears that many, if not most of these attacks were allegedly carried out not by white supremacists, not by the alt-right, but by people of color,&#8221; Tapper continued. &#8220;What&#8217;s your response when members of the orthodox community say — and I have heard them say this, and I&#8217;m sure you have too — that there would be more of an outrage if the attackers were white supremacists and thus fell more easily into a political narrative?&#8221;
&#8220;I mean, I think, again, this is where investigations, not only to bring those perpetrators to justice who are carrying out these incidents, but to identify their motivations, right?&#8221; Segal responded. &#8220;In Jersey City, it was something beyond merely an African-American, right? It wasn&#8217;t representative of that community. It was somebody who subscribed to real anti-Semitic ideology.&#8221;
&#8220;And so, when we&#8217;re thinking about the communities, we have to come together,&#8221; Segal continued. That&#8217;s why, at ADL, we&#8217;re bringing our No Place for Hate educational programs to Brooklyn, doubling the amount of students that we&#8217;re reaching out to, because it starts at an early age for people to have an understanding, and then to be allies for each other. And so I don&#8217;t think we need to overstep and try to overanalyze what this means, but we have to get the data, and we have to understand the motivations before we jump to conclusions.&#8221;
WATCH:
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
“At this point, we are in an epidemic in New York City, of all places, for the Jewish community” Oren Segal, VP of the Anti-Defamation League, tells <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jaketapper</a> in response to the Hanukkah celebration stabbings in New York. <a href="https://t.co/Bw7w7JFxgv">https://t.co/Bw7w7JFxgv</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNNSOTU?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CNNSOTU</a> <a href="https://t.co/irTSUrIoTs">pic.twitter.com/irTSUrIoTs</a>
&mdash; State of the Union (@CNNSotu) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNNSotu/status/1211325976447266816?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">December 29, 2019</a></blockquote>
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In November 2018, The New York Times <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/31/nyregion/jewish-bias-safety-nyc.html?auth=login-email&amp;login=email">noted</a> this problem in a report that highlighted the explosion of anti-Semitic hate crimes in New York City:
<blockquote>In fact, it is the varied backgrounds of people who commit hate crimes in the city that make combating and talking about anti-Semitism in New York much harder….bias stemming from longstanding ethnic tensions in the city presents complexities that many liberals have chosen simply to ignore….When a Hasidic man or woman is attacked by anyone in New York City, mainstream progressive advocacy groups do not typically send out emails calling for concern and fellowship and candlelight vigils in Union Square, as they often do when individuals are harmed in New York because of their race or ethnicity or how they identify in terms of gender or sexual orientation.</blockquote>
Daily Wire Editor-in-Chief Ben Shapiro commented on The Times report at the time, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/new-york-times-just-made-stunning-admission-about-ben-shapiro">writing</a>, &#8220;In other words, Jews don’t fit the intersectional classification necessary in order to receive narrative attention from either the mainstream media or from progressive groups. Orthodox Jews, who are often the targets of anti-Semitic attacks, aren’t seen as victims; their victimizers, who aren’t conservatives and who can’t be linked with conservatives, aren’t seen as victimizers. There’s a reason Al Sharpton, who helped initiate a riot against Orthodox Jews in Crown Heights in 1991, has a show on MSNBC where he opines about President Trump’s linkages to white supremacist anti-Semitism. Certain types of anti-Semitism are worthy of note. Others aren’t. And those on the Left often decide which is which with simple reference to a preferred narrative in which Jews are part of the white privileged class, unless they are victimized by white supremacists.&#8221;
Shapiro added, &#8220;But anti-Semitism runs the gamut, and certainly isn’t restricted to white supremacists — nor is anti-Semitism relegated to convenient narratives about President Trump’s rhetorical foibles. In fact, anti-Semitism can spring from racial hatred from minorities, from progressives who hate Israel, from radical Muslims. But those stories simply don’t interest the media, as even the Times now admits.&#8221;

CNN’s Tapper On NYC Anti-Semitic Attacks: Identity Of Attackers Doesn’t Fit ‘Political Narrative’

Anti-Semitism

New York

Sens. Josh Hawley (R-MO) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) introduced legislation on Wednesday that would move most federal agencies out of Washington, D.C. and into a variety of regions throughout the United States that have been deemed economically distressed.
&#8220;Every year, Americans&#8217; hard-earned tax dollars fund federal agencies that are mainly located in the D.C. bubble,&#8221; Hawley wrote in a statement. &#8220;That&#8217;s a big part of the problem with Washington: They&#8217;re too removed from the rest of America.&#8221;
The <a href="https://www.hawley.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2019-10/HIRE-Act-bill-text.pdf">Helping Infrastructure Restore the Economy</a> (HIRE) Act would require that ten executive agencies relocate their headquarters to predetermined areas that are not only financially struggling, but also have a geographic nexus to the assigned agency.
The legislation would generate an influx of permanent, well-paying jobs that would subsequently boost local economies, as well as cut costs for the American taxpayer by reducing the number of federal workers located in an area with a high cost of living.
&#8220;The HIRE Act will move policymakers directly into the communities they serve, creating thousands of jobs for local communities and saving taxpayers billions of dollars along the way,&#8221; Hawley added.
The proposed agency relocations include moving the Department of Agriculture to Missouri, the Department of Commerce to Pennsylvania, the Department of Education to Tennessee, the Department of Energy to Kentucky, the Department of Health and Human Services to Indiana, the Department of Housing and Urban Development to Ohio, the Department of the Interior to New Mexico, the Department of Labor to West Virginia, the Department of Transportation to Michigan, and the Department of Veterans Affairs to South Carolina.
&#8220;Moving agencies outside of Washington, D.C. both boosts local economies and lowers costs — that&#8217;s a winning combination,&#8221; Blackburn said. &#8220;This legislation would enable Americans across the country to have greater access to good jobs.&#8221;
&#8220;Tennesseans would greatly benefit from having portions of the Department of Education in the Volunteer State,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;It is my hope that the HIRE Act will quickly pass the Senate.&#8221;
Hawley introduced the legislation only a day after he defended the White House&#8217;s decision to move part of the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to Missouri. The freshman senator got into a heated back-and forth-with a former USDA researcher who authored an article in The Washington Post entitled: &#8220;The White House didn&#8217;t like my agency&#8217;s research. So it sent us to Missouri.&#8221;
&#8220;I assume this is a parody, right? D.C. bureaucrats aren&#8217;t actually saying out loud that moving to Missouri is … punishment, are they?&#8221; Hawley said in response to the op-ed. &#8220;Because surely nobody could be that condescending [and] elitist.&#8221;
&#8220;What&#8217;s really &#8216;condescending&#8217; here is the sort of smarmy, smirking contempt for people&#8217;s intelligence that [Hawley] is displaying,&#8221; replied Greg Sargent, an opinion writer for the Post. &#8220;Coming from a leading intellectual light of the new &#8216;conservative nationalism,&#8217; this unmasks the phony pastoral posturing that lies at its core.&#8221;
After Hawley fired back that Sargent was a &#8220;smug, rich liberal elitist&#8221; that shows &#8220;utter, open contempt for the people of the heartland,&#8221; CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper implied that the Missouri lawmaker&#8217;s attack was anti-Semitic.
&#8220;For defending my homestate of Missouri, liberal media have called me &#8216;phony,&#8217; &#8216;ugly,&#8217; &#8216;smarmy,&#8217; a racist and now an anti-Semite. All in 24 [hours],&#8221;  Hawley responded to the backlash. &#8220;This is how they bully those who aren’t part of the DC club. But I don&#8217;t care what slurs they use, I will ALWAYS defend Missouri.&#8221;
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
For defending my homestate of Missouri, liberal media have called me “phony,” “ugly,” “smarmy,” a racist and now an anti-Semite. All in 24 hrs. This is how they bully those who aren’t part of the DC club. But I don’t care what slurs they use, I will ALWAYS defend Missouri <a href="https://t.co/pfUGKEbcv5">https://t.co/pfUGKEbcv5</a>
&mdash; Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) <a href="https://twitter.com/HawleyMO/status/1186653943885160449?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">October 22, 2019</a></blockquote>
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&#8220;Just another day in the swamp,&#8221; he added.

USA, Washington, D.C., Aerial photograph of the United States Capitol and the Federal Triangle

GOP Lawmakers Seek To Move Most D.C. Bureaucracy Jobs To Economically Distressed Areas

Josh Hawley

CNN news anchor Jake Tapper revealed on Sunday that the network has hired former Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) as a political commentator.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s bring in new CNN contributor, commentator and former congressman Sean Duffy,&#8221; Tapper said as he introduced Duffy onto a panel during &#8220;State of the Union.&#8221; &#8220;Thank you for being here and congratulations on joining the CNN family.&#8221;
Duffy announced over the summer that he would be stepping down from his role in Congress to spend more time with his family. In October, he welcomed his ninth child, who needs special attention due to medical complications.
&#8220;Recently, we&#8217;ve learned that our baby, due in late October, will need even more love, time, and attention due to complications, including a heart condition,&#8221; Duffy wrote in a statement in August. &#8220;With much prayer, I have decided that this is the right time for me to take a break from public service in order to be the support my wife, baby, and family need right now. It is not an easy decision — because I truly love being your Congressman — but it is the right decision for my family, which is my first love and responsibility.&#8221;
Duffy has represented Wisconsin’s 7th Congressional District since he assumed office during the Tea Party wave in 2011. The district is the largest in the state of Wisconsin, covering 20 counties, and has become increasingly red over the past few election cycles.
In 2018, the former Wisconsin congressman was re-elected to the seat after winning more than 20% of the vote. President Donald Trump also won the district over his Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton by 21 points during the 2016 presidential election. The district is a Republican stronghold and is not expected to be competitive going into the 2020 election cycle.
Accordingly, Duffy is a staunch supporter of President Donald Trump.
In his first appearance on CNN since he was hired by the network, Duffy defended both the president and the Republican Party over claims that there is no room for dissenting opinions on the right side of the aisle.
&#8220;If you look at the Republican Party and Donald Trump, I mean, we&#8217;ve expanded the party. So, Donald Trump won Wisconsin for the first time since 1984 — we won Michigan, we won Ohio, we&#8217;re winning union voters, rural voters — we&#8217;re doing better than we ever have,&#8221; Duffy said during the panel. &#8220;Now, if you want to say we don&#8217;t do well on the coast — in New York, New England, in the west coast of California, yeah, that&#8217;s true. But in the middle of America, where we actually have to keep the Senate and we have so many House seats, we are doing incredibly well.&#8221;
&#8220;But the bottom line is, we have a great, diverse party. We are the big tent party. We have pro-lifers, pro-choicers, we have some who want open borders, we have some who want closed borders,&#8221; he continued. &#8220;We have a great debate and I think it only advances our ability to win elections in states in the middle of America.&#8221;
CNN did not return The Daily Wire&#8217;s request for comment.

Rep. Sean Duffy

CNN Hires Newly Retired GOP Congressman Duffy; Defends Trump In First Appearance

Donald Trump

Republican Party

Sean Duffy

Following Tuesday night&#8217;s Democratic primary debate hosted by CNN, far-left MSNBC host Chris Matthews questioned presidential candidate Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) about the costs of her &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; policy proposal.
Matthews repeatedly asked Warren how much the plan would cost taxpayers, though he never did receive an answer from the senator. Clearly frustrated with Warren&#8217;s refusal, Matthews later knocked the progressive lawmaker on-air. &#8220;Warren wouldn&#8217;t answer that question,&#8221; he <a href="https://twitter.com/RNCResearch/status/1156401216164941827">complained</a>.
&#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; will cost taxpayers more money, Matthews told Warren. &#8220;You guys dodged that tonight. … How much will your taxes go up?&#8221;
Warren refused to answer, suggesting the real question is, &#8220;How much are your costs going to go up?&#8221;
&#8220;I know that argument, but you&#8217;re covering it,&#8221; pressed Matthews.
&#8220;&#8216;Medicare for All&#8217; is cheaper than our current system — that&#8217;s the Republicans&#8217; version,&#8221; Warren said.
&#8220;I know the argument,&#8221; answered Matthews, &#8220;that you put it all together and you reduce the cost of healthcare premiums, and you get more benefits, therefore you come out ahead, but will you pay more in taxes? Why don&#8217;t you want to answer that question?&#8221;
&#8220;It’s a question about where people are gonna come out economically,&#8221; contended Warren.
&#8220;That&#8217;s not my question,&#8221; Matthews said. &#8220;That&#8217;s not my question. That&#8217;s not my question. My question is how much will taxes go up.&#8221;
Warren, again, refused to answer. &#8220;The question is about costs,&#8221; she said, about how much you&#8217;re &#8220;digging in your pocket&#8221; to pay healthcare costs.
&#8220;Will your taxes go up?&#8221; the MSNBC host asked, again. &#8220;Will your taxes go up? &#8230; There is no answer to the question, will your taxes go up.&#8221;
Matthews then moved on with the interview.
Warren and presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) both support a radical universal &#8220;Medicare for All&#8221; program that would end private insurance and cost an estimated $32 trillion, $10 trillion more than the current national debt.
&#8220;Look at the business model of an insurance company,&#8221; Warren has argued, <a href="https://www.cnbc.com/2019/06/27/elizabeth-warrens-shift-puts-health-insurers-in-2020-crossfire.html">according</a> to CNBC. &#8220;It’s to bring in as many dollars as they can in premiums and to pay out as few dollars as possible for your health care. That leaves families with rising premiums, rising co-pays, and fighting with insurance companies to try to get the health care that their doctors say that they and their children need. Medicare for All solves that problem.&#8221;
Not all Democrats are on board with the controversial plan, however. Former congressman John Delaney, for example, has called the proposal &#8220;political suicide.&#8221;
During Tuesday night&#8217;s debate, Delaney bluntly told Sen. Sanders that his &#8220;math is wrong.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s been well-documented that if all the bills were paid at a Medicare rate, which is specifically — I think it&#8217;s in section 1,200 of their bill — many hospitals in this country would close,&#8221; said the businessman and presidential hopeful.
&#8220;We don&#8217;t have to go around and be the party of subtraction … telling half the country who have private health insurance that their insurance is illegal,” Delaney suggested, adding, &#8220;The question is, why do we have to be extreme? I&#8217;m starting to think this isn&#8217;t about health care, this is about an anti-private sector strategy.&#8221;
As <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/447515-sweeping-plans-from-2020-contenders-come-with-trillion-dollar-price-tags">reported</a> by The Hill, Warren’s proposal to erase student loan debt and eliminate tuition at public colleges could cost $1.25 trillion, while her environmental spending plan comes with a $2 trillion price tag.
WATCH (relevant comments begin at the 1:30-mark):
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WATCH: Chris Matthews Battles Elizabeth Warren: ‘Answer That Question’

Bernie Sanders

Chris Matthews

Elizabeth Warren

Health Care

Media

Medicare

MSNBC

Taxes

Suffice it to say, Wednesday was not a good day for Democrats and their allies in the mainstream media hoping Special Counsel Robert Mueller would breathe new life into the beaten-to-death &#8220;Russian collusion&#8221; hoax.
Following the bumbling congressional testimony of Mr. Mueller, the media was forced to admit what an epic disaster the special counsel&#8217;s testimony truly was, and, naturally, it was compiled into a video montage with the song &#8220;<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gH476CxJxfg">Bad Day</a>&#8221; playing over it, which can be viewed below. The video was posted by conservative Tim Young.
As <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49843/media-response-muellers-testimony-brutal-james-barrett">covered</a> by The Daily Wire, the media reaction to Mueller was abysmal; James Barrett noted that “painful” and “disaster” became “refrains online among several high-profile media figures” with regard to Mueller’s performance, while other media figures admitted that the 74-year-old was &#8220;shaky,&#8221; &#8220;confused&#8221; and “sluggish.”
Fox News’ Chris Wallace, who is oftentimes highly critical of President Donald Trump, wondered if Mueller was actually “in charge” of his report on the investigation at all. “This has been a disaster for the Democrats, and I think it’s been a disaster for the reputation of Robert Mueller,” he <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49834/disaster-chris-wallace-rips-democrats-robert-ryan-saavedra">said</a>, adding, &#8220;I think it does raise questions about the degree to which he actually was in charge and in control of this report because he doesn’t seem very much in control or in charge of what the final report was.”
CNN, too, ripped the showing from Mueller. CNN senior political commentator and former Obama Chief Strategist David Axelrod said Mueller had a &#8220;very, very painful&#8221; performance. &#8220;This is delicate to say, but Mueller, whom I deeply respect, has not publicly testified before Congress in at least six years. And he does not appear as sharp as he was then,&#8221; he said. &#8220;And it helps explain why Mueller wanted his aide nearby.”
CNN host Jake Tapper said that while Mueller was &#8220;sharp at times,&#8221; &#8220;we can&#8217;t avoid the fact that there were times in the hearing that he was not. &#8230; There were also times when it seemed like he was unfamiliar with parts of the investigation.&#8221;
And that’s true. Mueller was surprisingly unfamiliar with Fusion GPS, the firm behind the infamous Democrat-funded &#8220;Steele Dossier,&#8221; and former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski.
Over at NBC News, George Stephanopoulos asked a panel of politicos if &#8220;the ball&#8221; was &#8220;advanced&#8221; with regard to impeachment proceedings on Trump. He was shot down: &#8220;No, impeachment is over,&#8221; a pundit quickly answered.
And at MSNBC, it was admitted that rather than breathing life into it, Mueller &#8220;sucked the life&#8221; out of the Russia-Trump collusion narrative.
It’s clear that Democrats seeking to impeach President Trump need to find a new hoax, I mean avenue.
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">WATCH: Here&#8217;s the supercut of everyone saying that Democrats&#8230; had a REALLY bad day with Robert Mueller&#8230; put to a relevant tune.<a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ImpeachmentIsOver?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ImpeachmentIsOver</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/MuellerHearing?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#MuellerHearing</a> <a href="https://t.co/NzLqq2iigR">pic.twitter.com/NzLqq2iigR</a>
— Tim Young (@TimRunsHisMouth) <a href="https://twitter.com/TimRunsHisMouth/status/1154126133413195776?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">July 24, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>

WATCH: Media Meltdown Montage Over Mueller Mess

Chris Wallace

According to <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2019/07/18/politics/democrats-squad-reaction/index.html">CNN</a>, multiple House Democrats &#8220;from across the political spectrum&#8221; are &#8220;extremely frustrated&#8221; by the heightened focus on the so-called &#8220;Squad&#8221; of far-left freshmen Democrats, a development forced by President Trump&#8217;s escalating rhetoric against them in a move one of the lawmakers described as &#8220;politically brilliant.&#8221;
In a report published Wednesday after the Trump rally in North Carolina — which included a headline-grabbing moment in which some in the crowd began to chant &#8220;Send her back!&#8221; in response to Trump&#8217;s criticism of Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) for her &#8220;vicious anti-Semitic screeds&#8221; — CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper and Dana Bash reported on the growing frustration among some of the House Democrats over the increased prominence of the &#8220;Squad&#8221;: Reps. Omar, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA).
The conversations with several Democrats, whom Tapper and Bash stress span the political spectrum, took place over the last few days — and before the North Carolina rally.
&#8220;The President won this one,&#8221; one House Democrat told CNN in reference to Trump&#8217;s focus on the Squad and the Democrats vote Tuesday to condemn his &#8220;go back&#8221; comments. &#8220;What the President has done is politically brilliant. Pelosi was trying to marginalize these folks, and the President has now identified the entire party with them.&#8221;
&#8220;The President&#8217;s words and actions speak for themselves,&#8221; said another. &#8220;We need to focus on the issues that got (Democrats) here: jobs, health care &#8230; instead of the issues the President brings up deliberately. Anything that takes away from bread-and-butter issues is playing into his hands.&#8221;
Another &#8220;frustrated&#8221; Democratic lawmaker made clear to CNN that many on the left side of the aisle are &#8220;angry and annoyed&#8221; by The Squad&#8217;s attacks on members of their own party. &#8220;I can&#8217;t tell you the number of members who are angry and annoyed about them criticizing us,&#8221; the congressional member said.
The sharp escalation of the battle between Trump and the Squad began last week when the president came to the defense of Pelosi after Ocasio-Cortez suggested that the speaker&#8217;s rebuke of the Squad for portraying fellow Democrats as pro-segregation might have a racial component.
&#8220;When these comments first started, I kind of thought that she was keeping the progressive flank at more of an arm&#8217;s distance in order to protect more moderate members, which I understood,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez told <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/outright-disrespectful-four-house-women-struggle-as-pelosi-isolates-them/2019/07/10/a33c63a8-a33f-11e9-b7b4-95e30869bd15_story.html">The Washington Post</a> last Wednesday. &#8220;But the persistent singling out . . . it got to a point where it was just outright disrespectful . . . the explicit singling out of newly elected women of color.&#8221;
Trump weighed in on the internal feud by coming to Pelosi&#8217;s defense. &#8220;I deal with Nancy Pelosi a lot, and we go back and forth and it’s fine, but I think that a group of people is being very disrespectful to her,&#8221; he said. &#8220;I’ll tell you something about Nancy Pelosi, she is not a racist, and for them to call her a racist is a disgrace.&#8221;
Over the weekend, Trump ramped up the rhetoric in a pair of <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Eauthor">tweets</a>: &#8220;So interesting to see ‘Progressive’ Democrat Congresswomen, who originally came from countries whose governments are a complete and total catastrophe, the worst, most corrupt and inept anywhere in the world (if they even have a functioning government at all), now loudly and viciously telling the people of the United States, the greatest and most powerful Nation on earth, how our government is to be run,&#8221; he wrote Sunday. &#8220;Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came. Then come back and show us how it is done. These places need your help badly, you can’t leave fast enough. I’m sure that Nancy Pelosi would be very happy to quickly work out free travel arrangements!&#8221;
Pelosi and the Democrats unified, at least outwardly, in their response on Tuesday, the House voting 240-187 to condemn Trump&#8217;s &#8220;racist comments&#8221; for having &#8220;legitimized and increased fear and hatred of new Americans and people of color.&#8221; The vote contained its own controversies, as the language was deemed to have violated House decorum for its accusation of &#8220;racism&#8221; against the president. Despite the official rebuke, Trump has not let up on his attacks on the Squad, particularly Omar, as the rally Wednesday demonstrated in dramatic fashion.
Related: <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/49613/watch-ocasio-cortez-gets-jamaican-immigrant-2020-james-barrett">WATCH: Ocasio-Cortez Gets Jamaican Immigrant 2020 Challenger, And She Comes Out Swinging</a>

CNN: ‘Frustrated’ Democrats Think Trump’s ‘Go Back’ Comments ‘Politically Brilliant’

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

Ayanna Pressley

Ilhan Omar

Rashida Tlaib

Trump Administration

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper repeatedly called out socialist Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) during an interview on Thursday over her refusal to vote for any border bill that would help improve conditions for detained illegal aliens after she has repeatedly claimed that the Trump administration is operating &#8220;concentration camps.&#8221;
Tapper questioned Ocasio-Cortez after she wrote the following on Twitter: &#8220;Under no circumstances should the House vote for a McConnell-only bill w/ no negotiation with Democrats. Hell no. That’s an abdication of power we should refuse to accept. They will keep hurting kids if we do.&#8221;
&#8220;Those are strong words against Speaker Pelosi and that bill as you know passed 84 to 8 in the Senate,&#8221; Tapper said. &#8220;A lot of Liberal Democrats voted for it. Explain why you&#8217;re taking such a strong stance here.&#8221;
Ocasio-Cortez responded: We passed a House version of this bill which had far more humanitarian provisions and accountability — and accountability for the facilities that are abusing kids at our border. And Mitch McConnell immediately smacked it down in order to pass and rammed through a Senate bill that has an enormous amount of funding for military as well as no guardrails and no accountability for facilities that are abusing our kids.&#8221;
&#8220;But Congresswoman, didn&#8217;t you vote against the House version too?&#8221; Tapper asked.
&#8220;I did,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez responded. &#8220;I did.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">Tapper asks Ocasio-Cortez why she voted against the Senate’s border bill, which passed 84-8
AOC: “We passed a House version of this bill … and Mitch McConnell immediately smacked it down&#8230;”
Tapper: “Didn’t you vote against the House version too?”
AOC: “I did. I did”
THREAD <a href="https://t.co/tQqPDTwQyV">pic.twitter.com/tQqPDTwQyV</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1144375803733430272?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Tapper continued pressing Ocasio-Cortez on the issue, asking: &#8220;By opposing both bills, aren&#8217;t you just ultimately depriving these kids of housing facilities that they need?&#8221;
Tapper&#8217;s question came after Ocasio-Cortez had falsely <a href="https://twitter.com/AOC/status/1140968240073662466">claimed</a> over the last week that the Trump administration was killing kids on concentration camps.
Ocasio-Cortez responded to Tapper&#8217;s question by saying that she voted against the Democrat and Republican bills because she &#8220;needed to send a message.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">CNN’s Jake Tapper to Ocasio-Cortez: “By opposing both bills aren’t you just ultimately depriving these kids of housing facilities that they need?”
AOC, who claims Trump is killing kids in “concentration camps,” says: “The reason I defected is because I needed to send a message” <a href="https://t.co/SuXfssPGmZ">pic.twitter.com/SuXfssPGmZ</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1144380779436228608?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Tapper then pressed Ocasio-Cortez on her use of the term &#8220;concentration camp&#8221; to describe the immigrant detention facilities located on the southern border.
Tapper asked: &#8220;What do you say to Americans especially survivors of the Holocaust or individuals who are related to survivors of the Holocaust you say look, academically you&#8217;re right, the term concentration camp did not necessarily mean death camp, but colloquially when most people hear it, they think death camp, they think Holocaust and you&#8217;re undermining your argument and you&#8217;re — and you&#8217;re hurting us. What — you&#8217;re hurting our feelings, hurting our emotions, hurting our memories. What do you say to those Holocaust survivors?&#8221;
After claiming that Jewish members of her community stood behind her message, Ocasio-Cortez said that she and her team told survivors of the Holocaust that she was correct for falsely claiming that the United States is operating concentration camps on the southern border.
Ocasio-Cortez also doubled down on comparing the situation to the Holocaust by <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/48521/ocasio-cortez-trump-running-concentration-camps-ryan-saavedra">again</a> invoking the term &#8220;Never Again,&#8221; which is a direct reference to the Holocaust.
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">Ocasio-Cortez says that she and her team have made sure to tell Holocaust survivors that she is right for using the term “concentration camp”
Ocasio-Cortez once again invokes “Never Again,” which is an explicit reference to the Holocaust <a href="https://t.co/ljR6RbbJ6e">pic.twitter.com/ljR6RbbJ6e</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1144386291477254144?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Tapper then noted that using her definition of what constitutes a &#8220;concentration camp,&#8221; that former Presidents Barack Obama and Bill Clinton would also be guilty of operating &#8220;concentration camps.&#8221;
&#8220;So did you call them concentration camps at the time when Obama was president?&#8221; Tapper asked.
&#8220;Well, at the time I was working in a restaurant,&#8221; Ocasio-Cortez said, adding that she was opposed to the detention of families under Obama. It&#8217;s worth noting that Ocasio-Cortez worked in politics while Obama was president as she <a href="https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/bernie-sanders-2020-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-endorsement-democratic-primaries-president-a8788316.html">worked</a> on Bernie Sanders&#8217; 2016 presidential campaign.
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">Tapper to AOC on concentration camps: “Using that definition, there were also concentration camps under Obama &amp; Clinton … Did you call them concentration camps [then]?”
AOC: “Well at the time I was working in a restaurant&#8230;”
AOC also worked for Bernie’s campaign during Obama <a href="https://t.co/rJkFAufUCn">pic.twitter.com/rJkFAufUCn</a>
— Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1144392054434226176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">June 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Full video:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/M4CrNQYNx3g" width="560" height="315" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen="allowfullscreen"></iframe></div>

Tapper Shreds AOC On Border Bill. AOC Doubles Down On Holocaust Rhetoric.

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper admitted during a panel discussion on Friday that President Donald Trump did not call neo-Nazis and white supremacists &#8220;very fine people&#8221; in the aftermath of the events that unfolded in Charlottesville two years ago.
The topic came up after Trump responded to comments made by Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden, who <a href="https://www.usatoday.com/story/opinion/2019/04/26/joe-biden-donald-trump-charlotttesville-fine-people-neo-nazis-column/3588970002/">falsely suggested</a> in his campaign launch video that Trump referred to neo-Nazis and white supremacists as &#8220;very fine people.&#8221;
&#8220;I have answered that question, and if you look at what I said, you will see that question was answered perfectly,&#8221; Trump said Friday in reference to Biden&#8217;s comments.
When Trump&#8217;s comments were discussed by Tapper on &#8220;The Lead with Jake Tapper,&#8221; the CNN host, who is often highly critical of Trump, admitted that the president was not referring to neo-Nazis and white supremacists when he made his &#8220;very fine people&#8221; comment. Trump stated at the time:
<blockquote>
And you had people &#8212; and I&#8217;m not talking about the neo-Nazis and the White nationalists, because they should be condemned totally &#8212; but you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and White nationalists, Okay? And the press has treated them absolutely unfairly. Now, in the other group also, you had some fine people. But you also had troublemakers, and you see them come with the black outfits and with the helmets and with the baseball bats. You had a lot of bad people in the other group.
</blockquote>
&#8220;He&#8217;s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people,&#8221; Tapper said, adding that Trump was referring to protestors who did not want Confederate monuments removed and who were not a part of the neo-Nazis and white supremacists.
Dilbert creator Scott Adams noted the multiple problems with Biden&#8217;s campaign launch video in a tweet, writing: &#8220;Two minutes into his official candidacy for president, human gaffe machine #Biden praised a slave owner, endorsed Antifa, and spread the most damaging race hoax in American history. #Biden2020&#8221;
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Two minutes into his official candidacy for president, human gaffe machine <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Biden?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Biden</a> praised a slave owner, endorsed Antifa, and spread the most damaging race hoax in American history. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/Biden2020?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#Biden2020</a>
&#8212; Scott Adams (@ScottAdamsSays) <a href="https://twitter.com/ScottAdamsSays/status/1121391504293892097?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
Even CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper admits that President Donald Trump condemned neo-Nazis and white supremacists: &#8220;He&#8217;s not saying that the neo-Nazis and white supremacists are very fine people&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/2hy1rQp8nP">pic.twitter.com/2hy1rQp8nP</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1121893828552609792?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Multiple Democrat presidential candidates have parroted the lie that Trump called neo-Nazis and white supremacists &#8220;very fine people,&#8221; including:
<a href="https://twitter.com/nbcnews/status/1114211370176847872">Beto O&#8217;Rourke</a>: &#8220;Saying that neo-Nazis and Klansmen and white supremacists are &#8216;very fine people.&#8217; You draw your own conclusions, but this is not something that I expected to hear a president of the United States of America ever say.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HozgpysQDY&amp;feature=youtu.be&amp;t=618">Bernie Sanders</a>: &#8220;Trump is a man who as you know has said that he believes those Nazis and white supremacists you watched in Charlottesville are &#8216;very fine people.&#8217;&#8221;
<a href="https://www.bostonmagazine.com/news/2018/01/15/elizabeth-warren-trump-racist/">Elizabeth Warren</a>: &#8220;When a racist bully talks about people who march with white supremacists and Nazis as &#8216;very fine people.&#8217;&#8221;
<a href="https://twitter.com/KamalaHarris/status/1087540355594141697">Kamala Harris</a>: &#8220;We&#8217;re facing a leadership crisis in the White House. From referring to white supremacists as &#8216;very fine people,&#8217; to putting children in cages, to sabotaging our country&#8217;s health care, we know America can be better than this &#8212; but it&#8217;s on us to build it.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.facebook.com/cnn/videos/411820779385012/?v=411820779385012">Cory Booker</a>: &#8220;I understand your sense of urgency and even your sense of disgust about seeing what&#8217;s coming from the White House. Can&#8217;t even condemn Nazis. &#8230; For Donald Trump &#8230;. to fail even to condemn Nazis or even to talk about white supremacy as a problem in this country, to me, that is being complicit in the violence that is happening.&#8221;

WATCH: Even CNN’s Tapper Admits Trump Didn’t Call Neo-Nazis, White Supremacists ‘Very Fine People’

Charlottesville

<a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45874/democrats-demand-attorney-general-william-barr-ashe-schow">Democrats</a> and their allies in the mainstream media exploded last week after Attorney General William Barr <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45809/watch-ag-barr-i-think-spying-did-occur-trump-amanda-prestigiacomo">told</a> a Senate panel that the Obama administration spied on Donald Trump&#8217;s 2016 presidential campaign.
&#8220;I am going to be reviewing both the genesis and the conduct of intelligence activities directed at the Trump campaign during 2016,&#8221; Barr <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/45809/watch-ag-barr-i-think-spying-did-occur-trump-amanda-prestigiacomo">stated</a>, later adding, &#8220;I think spying did occur, yes. I think spying did occur.&#8221;
Running predictable interference for the Democrats, CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper ran a segment on his show, &#8220;The Lead,&#8221; dissecting why Barr used the word &#8220;spied.&#8221; The implication, of course, is that Barr is a partisan doing as he is told by President Trump and using alleged &#8220;dog whistles&#8221; to gin up the base.
CNN contributor Mary Katherine Ham, however, was quick to disrupt their display in unhinged anti-Trump outrage, informing the group that &#8220;spying&#8221; on someone and surveilling someone without their knowledge is effectively the same thing &#8212; no matter how much they may dislike the president.
&#8220;Barr said, quote, &#8216;spying did occur. Yes, I think spying did occur.&#8217; He also said, I want to make sure there was no unauthorized surveillance,&#8221; Tapper <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1904/11/cg.02.html">started</a> the segment. &#8220;So I think it&#8217;s still kind of up in the air, what did he mean when he said spying did occur. What do you think he meant?&#8221;
Karen Finney, CNN commentator and former Hillary Clinton campaign spokeswoman, suggested it was because Barr was trying to &#8220;give a little credence to &#8230; conspiracy theories, maybe a little red meat for Trump.&#8221;
&#8220;Was he trying, to &#8230; you know, buy into or give a little credence to the sort of conspiracy theories, maybe a little red meat for Trump for being good for not tweeting the first weekend that the Mueller report was supposedly out,&#8221; she said. &#8220;Or is it that Barr is not understanding &#8212; I mean, this is a very different time than the last time he was attorney general in terms of social media, in terms of the connotations.&#8221;
Finney added that she&#8217;s not sure the AG understands &#8220;the weight of what he&#8217;s saying that we think of spying in a very different way than the Vietnam era, which I would argue is all the more reason if you are thinking about Vietnam to make the report public.&#8221;
Tapper then stepped in to play a clip of former FBI director James Comey assuring the public that they only surveilled and did not &#8220;spy&#8221; on the Trump team.
&#8220;It&#8217;s concerning because the FBI, the Department of Justice&#8230;court-ordered electronic surveillance. I have never thought of that as spying,&#8221; Comey says in the clip.
&#8220;I think that Barr is talking about whatever Donald Trump wants him to be talking about,&#8221; Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons stated bluntly. &#8220;It just feels like he was told to use the word spying and he was looking for a way to work it into the conversation.&#8221;
&#8220;Spying, surveillance, tomato, tomato. This wouldn&#8217;t be the first time a Trump appointee has looked into a conspiracy theory,&#8221; CNN contributor and former Ted Cruz staffer Amanda Carpenter claimed. &#8220;I remember that when Mike Pompeo was CIA director, he took a meeting with someone who claimed that the DNC hacking was an inside job. So, maybe sometimes you have to do stuff to make your boss happy.&#8221;
&#8220;But why spying instead of surveillance, if you know the difference,&#8221; Finney interjected.
&#8220;Yes,&#8221; Tapper agreed.
That&#8217;s when Ham stepped in: &#8220;Because they&#8217;re synonyms. That&#8217;s why,&#8221; she directly stated.
&#8216;If you&#8217;re going to the FISA court and you are surveilling someone without their knowledge, you are spying on them, whether it is authorized or not. The question is, whether this was appropriate?&#8221; the commentator explained to the panel.
&#8220;Now I have always been more than willing to be convinced there was enough there, there that they needed to get this warrant specifically for Carter Page, but the bar should be extremely high for using FISA court warrants to go after American citizens,&#8221; she continued. &#8220;And the DOJ inspector general is already doing investigation into this to determine whether that was the case, which I think is good for all private American citizens who would like not to be spied on if there is not good cause.&#8221;
Ham added, &#8220;And I am not interested in pretending that words don&#8217;t mean what they mean just because Trump uses them sometimes. And spy means this. I&#8217;m sorry. It just does.&#8221;
Finney then suggested that such truth is thrown out the window when it comes to Trump. &#8220;But that&#8217;s not the world we&#8217;re living in. I mean, Trump uses certain words very deliberately to &#8212; as dog whistles, to send signals to the alt-right,&#8221; she said.
&#8220;So spy doesn&#8217;t mean what it means anymore?&#8221; protested Ham, adding, &#8220;I was very capable of explaining the difference.&#8221;
&#8220;Does spy mean authorized or unauthorized?&#8221; asked Tapper.
Ham calmly explained, &#8220;I think it means both. We&#8217;re now determining whether this was appropriate or not.&#8221;
&#8220;So it means surveillance and now &#8212;,&#8221; the host started.
&#8220;When you are surveilling a person without their knowledge, you are spying on them, yes,&#8221; Ham pointed out.
Still, Tapper pretended what Ham was saying was somehow controversial. &#8220;Okay, but Democrats are not happy with your explanation or that type of explanation.&#8221;
&#8220;It&#8217;s just words,&#8221; Ham retorted.
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-conversation="none" data-lang="en">
<a href="https://t.co/ruLJgjtF4C">pic.twitter.com/ruLJgjtF4C</a>
&#8212; Jamie Crew (@Crusaydah) <a href="https://twitter.com/Crusaydah/status/1118037399961866241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 16, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
<a href="https://twitter.com/Crusaydah/status/1118037399961866241">H/t </a>Molly Hemingway
Partial transcript <a href="http://www.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1904/11/cg.02.html">via</a> CNN

WATCH: CNN Contributor Embarrasses Panel, Jake Tapper After Refusal To Admit Obama Admin Spied On Trump

Mary Katherine Ham

On Sunday, Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA), who recently declared his candidacy for president, appeared on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union.&#8221; During the segment, host Jake Tapper asked Swalwell about his signature issue &#8212; gun control.
<blockquote>
TAPPER: So, gun control is the central plank in your campaign. You wrote last year: &#8220;We should ban possession of military-style semiautomatic assault weapons. We should buy back such weapons from all who choose to abide by the law. And we should criminally prosecute any who choose to defy it by keeping their weapons.&#8221;
Criminal prosecution for keeping assault weapons. What&#8217;s the punishment for people who don&#8217;t hand in their guns? Do they go to jail?
SWALWELL: Well, Jake, they would, but I also offer an alternative, which would be to keep them at a hunting club or a shooting range.
And the reason I have proposed this is because these weapons are so devastating. I have seen this as a prosecutor in the cases that I have prosecuted. We have seen these in the school shootings, from Sandy Hook to Parkland&#8230;
But it&#8217;s not just the violence that they have caused. It&#8217;s the fear, the immeasurable fear, that our children live in, because they are still on our streets. I want to get rid of that fear. I want to do what Australia did and New Zealand just recently did. I think this issue just needs some bold leadership to do it.
</blockquote>
Tapper then noted that the majority of shooting deaths do not involve semi-automatic rifles.
<blockquote>
TAPPER: I know you know this, but the vast majority of gun-related deaths in this country are not related to these semiautomatic assault weapons &#8212; whatever you want to call them &#8212; and the vast majority of gun owners are law-abiding citizens who have purchased these weapons legally and use them safely.
One of the most frequent attacks on this issue from President Trump and the Republicans is that Democrats want to take away your guns. But isn&#8217;t it fair to say you actually do want to take away people&#8217;s guns?
SWALWELL: You know, keep your pistols, keep your long rifles, keep your shotguns. I want the most dangerous weapons, these weapons of war, out of the hands of the most dangerous people.
</blockquote>
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet">
2020 Democratic presidential candidate <a href="https://twitter.com/RepSwalwell?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RepSwalwell</a> vows to focus on gun control: &#8220;It&#8217;s not just the violence that they&#8217;ve caused, it&#8217;s the fear, the immeasurable fear that our children live in because they&#8217;re still on our streets. I want to get rid of that fear.&#8221; <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/CNNSOTU?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#CNNSOTU</a> <a href="https://t.co/mZfJVHh4Dq">pic.twitter.com/mZfJVHh4Dq</a>
&#8212; CNN (@CNN) <a href="https://twitter.com/CNN/status/1117429329573687296?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 14, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Tapper is correct when he states that &#8220;the vast majority of gun-related deaths in this country are not related to these semiautomatic assault weapons.&#8221;
According to Uniform Crime Reporting <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2010-2014.xls">data</a> from the FBI, between 2010 and 2014, there were approximately 43,002 murders in the United States in which firearms were the weapon of choice. 70% (30,114) of the firearms used were handguns, while 3.6% (1,530) were rifles.
Even if one takes the 21.5% (9,228) of gun deaths that were committed using unclassified firearms, assumes that half of them were rifles (a very generous assumption given the statistics), and adds that to the 3.6% of gun deaths in which rifles were identified as the weapon used, that still amounts to just over a quarter (25.1%) of total firearm murders in the United States.
For context, 5.3 times as many people (8,109) are murdered in the United States with &#8220;knives or cutting instruments&#8221; than with rifles, and 2.3 times as many people (3,574) are murdered in the United States with &#8220;hands, fists, [and] feet&#8221; than with rifles, according to FBI <a href="https://ucr.fbi.gov/crime-in-the-u.s/2014/crime-in-the-u.s.-2014/tables/expanded-homicide-data/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2010-2014.xls">data</a>.

Jake Tapper To Dem Rep. Eric Swalwell: ‘Vast Majority Of Gun-Related Deaths’ Are Not From Semi-Automatic Rifles

Democratic Party

Eric Swalwell

Gun Control

Guns

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper claimed on Sunday that not only was CNN not on &#8220;the Left,&#8221; but that the network did not get anything wrong in its reporting on the Russia investigation.
Tapper made the remarks on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; when Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, appeared on the show to talk about the conclusion of Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s Russia investigation.
&#8220;We need to figure out what went wrong with the Mueller report, why &#8212; in all fairness to your network, why the media got it so wrong for so long,&#8221; Mulvaney said. &#8220;How did the media get it so wrong?&#8221;
&#8220;But I&#8217;m not sure what you&#8217;re saying the media got wrong,&#8221; Tapper responded. &#8220;The media reported what &#8212; the investigation was going on. Other than the people in the media on the left, not on this network, I don&#8217;t know anybody who got anything wrong.&#8221;
&#8220;We didn&#8217;t say that there was conspiracy,&#8221; Tapper continued. &#8220;We said that Mueller was investigating conspiracy.&#8221;
&#8220;If that&#8217;s your recollection of history, that&#8217;s great,&#8221; Mulvaney responded. &#8220;Face it, come on, the media got this wrong, Jake. It&#8217;s Okay. People get stuff wrong all the time, just not at this level. But it&#8217;s done now. The report is there. It&#8217;s extraordinarily thorough, as you know. I think they talked to 500 people, issued 2,800 subpoenas.&#8221;
&#8220;And it completely exonerates the president,&#8221; Mulvaney added. &#8220;There&#8217;s no collusion. There&#8217;s no obstruction of justice.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed tweet">
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en">
CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper on Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s Russia investigation: &#8220;Other than the people in the media on the Left, not on this network, I don&#8217;t know anybody got anything wrong. We didn&#8217;t say there was conspiracy. We said that Mueller was investigating conspiracy.&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/jOBZbpo7Up">pic.twitter.com/jOBZbpo7Up</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1112437180268306432?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 31, 2019</a></blockquote>
</div>
Tapper&#8217;s claim that CNN did not get anything wrong in its reporting is factually false.
In December 2017, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/24487/fake-news-cnn-reports-bombshell-exclusive-russia-ryan-saavedra">CNN</a> &#8220;made a major error in reporting key details of an alleged offer made to Donald Trump Jr. in September 2016, regarding a batch of documents from WikiLeaks,&#8221; The Daily Wire reported at the time. &#8220;CNN claimed that Trump Jr. was sent an email on September 4, 2016, from a person named Michael J. Erickson which included a link to WikiLeaks documents and a decryption key to access the purportedly stolen emails. The date CNN reported, however, was incorrect. The actual date of the email was September 14.&#8221;
&#8220;The date is significant because it shows that Trump Jr. was sent documents from WikiLeaks that were already available to the public, which undermines the key premise of CNN&#8217;s story that the Trump campaign was in cahoots with WikiLeaks to bring down the Clinton campaign,&#8221; The Daily Wire added.
In May 2017, CNN reported that Jeff Sessions had failed to disclose contacts that he had with Russian officials when he was a senator and CNN &#8220;framed the non-disclosures as more evidence of collusion between Russia and the Trump team,&#8221; <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2017/12/11/cnn-walks-back-jeff-sessions-russia-bombshell/">The Daily Caller</a> reported.
In December 2017, according to The Daily Caller, CNN admitted &#8220;that FBI emails prove that Sessions&#8217; explanation for the non-disclosures is accurate,&#8221; which indicated &#8220;that Sessions was following what the FBI told him and was not intentionally trying to mislead the DOJ about his meetings with Russians.&#8221;
CNN also falsely <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2017/06/07/cnn-corrects-comey-testimony-prediction-story/">reported</a> what former FBI Director James Comey was prepared to say during his testimony before Congress in 2017, leading to the following correction:
<blockquote>
This article was published before Comey released his prepared opening statement. The article and headline have been corrected to reflect that Comey does not directly dispute that Trump was told multiple times he was not under investigation in his prepared testimony released after this story was published.
</blockquote>
Last year, Lanny David, the lawyer for former Trump attorney Michael Cohen, <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/08/22/lanny-davis-dispute-trump-tower-cohen/">debunked</a> a <a href="https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/26/politics/michael-cohen-donald-trump-june-2016-meeting-knowledge/index.html">CNN</a> report that claimed that Cohen had information that Trump was aware of the Trump Tower meeting during the 2016 campaign.
Tapper&#8217;s claim that no one at CNN accused the Trump campaign of collusion is also false as CNN anchor Chris Cuomo <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/media/436009-cnns-cuomo-theres-100-percent-behavior-by-people-around-trump-that-qualifies">said</a> just last week: &#8220;There&#8217;s 100 percent behavior by people around the president that qualifies as collusion.&#8221;

Tapper Claims CNN Did Not Get ‘Anything Wrong’ In Russia Reporting. Here Are The Facts.

CNN&#8217;s Paul Begala made disparaging remarks about President Donald Trump&#8217;s daughter and son-in-law during a segment this week on &#8220;The Lead&#8221; with Jake Tapper.
The segment centered around a new book that claims that Trump wanted Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner fired from their roles in his administration.
CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper asked Begala: &#8220;Is it a sign that loyalty is, is preeminent with the Trumps?&#8221;
&#8220;I don&#8217;t think so. No, I think mediocrity is,&#8221; Begala responded. &#8220;And when you&#8217;re too mediocre even for Donald Trump, you really got a problem. And of course they survived. I mean, cockroaches are going to survive a nuclear war.&#8221;
<a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ryan-foley/2019/03/13/cnns-begala-calls-ivanka-and-jared-cockroaches-president-trump">NewsBusters</a> notes that Begala&#8217;s comments &#8220;could be taken by some as anti-Semitic since Kushner is Jewish and Ivanka converted to Judaism. Begala&#8217;s comparison of the Jewish Kushners to insects closely mirrors the rhetoric of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, who denied that he was anti-Semitic; instead arguing that he was &#8216;anti-termite.'&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="360" width="640"></iframe></div>
Full transcript provided via <a href="https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/ryan-foley/2019/03/13/cnns-begala-calls-ivanka-and-jared-cockroaches-president-trump">NewsBusters</a>:
<blockquote>
JAKE TAPPER: We&#8217;re back with our &#8220;Politics Lead.&#8221; Explosive new claims about Trump family drama inside the West Wing from a forthcoming book, Kushner, Inc. by Vicky Ward. According to an excerpt reported by the New York Times, President Trump&#8217;s daughter Ivanka told then White House adviser Gary Cohn &#8220;my dad&#8217;s not a racist&#8221; after the President said both sides were to blame after white supremacists spewing hatred clashed with protesters in Charlottesville, Virginia. The book also claims the President wanted to send his son-in-law Jared Kushner and his daughter packing and back to New York. But as CNN&#8217;s Kate Bennett reports, representatives for the couple dismissed the claims in this new book as completely false.
KATE BENNETT: Washington buzzing today about a new book that takes a hard look at Ivanka Trump and her husband Jared Kushner. In Kushner, Inc., writer Vicky Ward focuses on the inner workings of the White House power couple. Part family, part presidential confidant, Ivanka has defended her father after Trump made these infamous remarks following the deadly Charlottesville protests.
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think there&#8217;s blame on both sides.
BENNETT: Ward says Ivanka was adamant. &#8220;My dad&#8217;s not a racist&#8230;He didn&#8217;t mean any of it,&#8221; telling then-White House economic adviser Gary Cohn, who was rocked by Trump&#8217;s remarks and surprised by Ivanka&#8217;s response. The New York Times in a story about the book also saying Trump at one point wanted his daughter and son-in-law out of Washington; demanding then Chief of Staff John Kelly &#8220;get rid of my kids&#8230;get them back to New York,&#8221; Ward writes. The White House today pushing back. Press Secretary Sarah Sanders in a statement saying &#8220;it&#8217;s sad, but not surprising the media would spend time promoting a book based on shady anonymous sources and false information instead of all the incredible work Jared and Ivanka are doing for the country.&#8221; Incredible work the President recently touted falsely claiming&#8230;
PRESIDENT TRUMP: My daughter&#8217;s created millions of jobs. I don&#8217;t know if anyone knows that but she&#8217;s created millions of jobs.
BENNETT: The new book also claims Ivanka has taken advantage of her position. The New York Times writing &#8220;Ms. Trump also often requested to travel on Air Force planes when it was not appropriate. When Rex Tillerson, the former Secretary of State would deny the requests, the couple would invite along a cabinet secretary, often Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, to get access to a plane.&#8221; A spokesperson for Kushner&#8217;s attorney released this statement to CNN &#8220;every point that Ms. Ward mentioned in what she called her &#8216;fact checking&#8217; stage was entirely false. It seems she has written a book of fiction rather than any serious attempt to get the facts. Correcting everything wrong would take too long and be pointless.&#8221; A sentiment echoed last year by the first daughter herself when asked about life in Washington.
IVANKA TRUMP: There&#8217;s a level of viciousness that I was not expecting. I was not inspect&#8230; expecting the intensity of this experience but this isn&#8217;t supposed to be easy.
BENNETT: Sarah Sanders also claims the author originally listed this book as fiction and the White House says her initial representation was accurate. So far, no word from Jared or Ivanka officially. Back to you, Jake.
TAPPER: All right, Kate Bennett, thanks so much. David Urban, let me start with you. The President, according to this book, was frustrated with Ivanka and Jared because they generated bad press. He devised a plan with his then-Chief of Staff John Kelly to make life tough for them so that they would go back to New York City. Regardless, Jared and Ivanka, just on the facts, forgot the book for a second. They&#8217;ve outlasted everybody. There&#8217;s clearly been fights that they&#8217;ve had with other people within the West Wing. They have outlasted everybody.
DAVID URBAN: Yeah. I mean, look, number one, I find this&#8230;I do find this fictional. There&#8217;s a lot of books that are written that you see and there&#8217;s&#8230;I know grains of truth in some of them. I think this, imagining the President telling John Kelly like let&#8217;s get rid of my kids, send them back to New York. I mean, I&#8217;ve been around the President, and Jared, and Ivanka, and I can tell you that that&#8217;s pure fiction and not believable whatsoever.
TAPPER: What, what do you take from, from this book? Is it a sign that loyalty is, is preeminent with the Trumps?
PAUL BEGALA: I don&#8217;t think so. No, I think mediocrity is. And when you&#8217;re too mediocre even for Donald Trump, you really got a problem. And of course they survived. I mean, cockroaches are going to survive a nuclear war. When they, when they took this job&#8230;
TAPPER: You&#8217;re not calling Ivanka and Jared cockroaches.
BEGALA: Family is&#8230;no, no, no, I&#8217;m talking about a separate class of species.
TAPPER: Okay.
BEGALA: But when they took this job, I thought it was an enormous mistake. I don&#8217;t believe in criticizing politicians&#8217; families. They&#8217;re no longer family. They&#8217;re government officials.
TAPPER: Sure.
BEGALA: They work for me.
TAPPER: Right.
BEGALA: And so we should hold them to a high standard. And some of the stuff in here is shocking. Abusing military aircraft, I mean, you know, it&#8217;s just&#8230;profiting, profiting&#8230;I know they both had difficult fathers, right, that&#8217;s part of the book apparently. Ms. Ward reports one a criminal, the other Charlie Kushner, the New Jersey real estate developer. And so you can&#8217;t excuse that in the government official though. I don&#8217;t really care if you had a bad daddy, you work for me now.
TAPPER: I do find&#8230;I do find credible though the part where Gary Cohn expresses frustration to Ivanka Trump. We know that he was very upset about that.
TIFFANY CROSS: Right.
TAPPER: And she says my dad is not a racist. You know, you&#8217;re getting it wrong or whatever. That, that does sound like what happened.
TIFFANY CROSS: Yeah. Well, it sounds like asinine response to ridiculous comments that come from this President that have been consistent with his candidacy, consistent with his presidency. Look, I think this is what happens when the Lannisters occupy the White House. You know, this is something that is very consistent with what we&#8217;ve seen throughout the family.
TAPPER: Just a fact check. The Lannisters always repay their debts.
CROSS: Fair enough. Fair enough, Jake, fair enough.
TAPPER: Just one thing.
CROSS: Fair enough. Yeah. I think this is kind of ridiculous. Look, these are not public servants, Okay. Like this is not somebody who wants to fly&#8230;you know, she wants to fly private.
</blockquote>

WATCH: CNN Commentator Compares Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner To ‘Cockroaches’

Ivanka Trump

Democrat Nina Turner ripped Rep. Nanette Barragan (D-CA) on CNN&#8217;s &#8220;State of the Union&#8221; on Sunday after Barragán tried to blame the Virginia Democrat racism scandal on President Donald Trump.
CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper asked Barragan about a scenario where Democrat Governor Ralph Northam, Democrat Lt. Governor Justin Fairfax, and Democrat Attorney General Mark Herring could all have to resign for their respective scandals, which would lead to a Republican becoming governor.
&#8220;I mean, the race issue in today&#8217;s day and age with the president at the helm who has been one of the most divisive presidents and, frankly, racist himself, is a conversation we do need to have,&#8221; Barragan said. &#8220;And we can&#8217;t forget about the person who is dividing us and who himself is injecting this into the country to live up again and coming out again. We haven&#8217;t seen it be this bad in recent time until the president has really made this a race issue whether it&#8217;s about African-Americans, certainly he&#8217;s doing it all over the board with immigrants, but we need to have this conversation.&#8221;
Turner exploded on Barragan over her comments.
&#8220;Jake, I cannot. I just can&#8217;t. 1984, 1980, Gucci just a few days ago,&#8221; Turner responded. &#8220;This is not about President Donald Trump. This is about racism in the United States of America. Congresswoman, I hear you, but on this, we&#8217;re not blaming President Trump.&#8221;
&#8220;I am not going to continue to let politicians use this man as the excuse to deal with racism in this country,&#8221; Turner continued. &#8220;So no more about this &#8212; these three men. It had nothing to do with President Trump. What Lieutenant Governor Fairfax is going through don&#8217;t have nothing to do with President Trump. Northam wearing blackface don&#8217;t have nothing to do with Donald Trump.&#8221;
WATCH:
<div class="embed video fluid-video"><iframe allow="accelerometer; autoplay; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen frameborder="0" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ZrR9-H4lGF4" width="560"></iframe></div>
Transcript provided via <a href="http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/1902/10/sotu.01.html">CNN</a>:
<blockquote>
JAKE TAPPER: Let me ask you a question, Congresswoman, as the elected Democrat at the table, if all three of them resign, then I believe the Republican speaker of the house of delegates becomes governor. You don&#8217;t want that.
BARRAGAN: No, but we need to think about doing what&#8217;s right and what&#8217;s right for Virginians and what&#8217;s right overall. I mean, the race issue in today&#8217;s day and age with the president at the helm who has been one of the most divisive presidents and, frankly, racist himself, is a conversation we do need to have. But looking at just the line of order and saying we&#8217;re not going to do that because of the consequence is not the right way to do this. And so for me, I would &#8212; I do think we need to have this conversation and we should continue to have this conversation, but it has to be front and center. And we can&#8217;t forget about the person who is dividing us and who himself is injecting this into the country to live up again and coming out again. We haven&#8217;t seen it be this bad in recent time until the president has really made this a race issue whether it&#8217;s about African-Americans, certainly he&#8217;s doing it all over the board with immigrants, but we need to have this conversation.
NINA TURNER: Jake, I cannot. I just can&#8217;t. 1984, 1980, Gucci just a few days ago. This is not about President Donald Trump. This is about racism in the United States of America. Congresswoman, I hear you, but on this, we&#8217;re not blaming President Trump.
BARRAGAN: I&#8217;m saying he has divided this country &#8212;
TURNER: No, let me just say this.
BARRAGAN: He is using &#8212;
(CROSSTALK)
TURNER: I am not going to continue to let politicians use this man as the excuse to deal with racism in this country. It&#8217;s been going on for far too long in the United States of America. We need some real truth and reconciliation.
Yes, president Trump is a racist. There is no doubt about it. But as we have seen, Democrats delve in racism as well. We&#8217;ve got to stop making this about who is a Republican, who is a Democrat. I want to know who say humanitarian.
BARRAGAN (ph): That&#8217;s right.
TURNER: I want to know who&#8217;s going to stand up for people&#8217;s lives, starting with black people&#8217;s lives. Because when you take care of black lives everybody&#8217;s life is taken care of. Everyone&#8217;s life taken care of.
So no more about this &#8212; these three men. It had nothing to do with President Trump. What Lieutenant Governor Fairfax is going through don&#8217;t have nothing to do with President Trump. Northam wearing blackface don&#8217;t have nothing to do with Donald Trump.
Herring, wearing blackface has nothing to do with Donald Trump. This is about racism in the DNA of this country. And I am over it.
We are traumatized, Jake, and we are sick of it. Politicians need to stop playing games.
MIA LOVE: What is being said is exactly right. It&#8217;s about personal responsibility for your own actions and things you&#8217;ve done. When he was 25 years old, it wasn&#8217;t &#8212; he couldn&#8217;t blame Trump for his behavior at 25 years old. I mean, you can&#8217;t &#8212;
(CROSSTALK) TURNER: And in medical school.
LOVE: &#8212; take responsibility for the things you do. And I think that that&#8217;s a problem with Virginia governor is that first he said, oh, I&#8217;m sorry. Yes, that was me I&#8217;m sorry about the picture. Then it was like, well, I don&#8217;t really remember.
And his wife is keeping him from actually moonwalking. I mean, this is a person that does not know what were the appropriate levels are. I mean, he cannot &#8212; he can&#8217;t govern.
So it&#8217;s absolutely time for him to go and wipe the slate clean. And I appreciate by the way the representative saying that this has nothing to do with what &#8212; you know who is next in line and the risk of Republicans actually taking office. This has to do with right and wrong, and this &#8212; these are clearly the wrong places for these people.
KEN CUCCINELLI: I appreciate those comments as well, but &#8212; and I&#8217;m not speaking to you, but they&#8217;re new on the Democrat side. Ralph Northam got universal calls for resignation when this became the whole Democrat power structure. It got really quiet.
TAPPER: Well, there haven&#8217;t been &#8212;
(CROSSTALK)
TAPPER: &#8212; for Herring to resign.
CUCCINELLI: Until &#8212; until the second sexual assault allegation. Then it broke it loose again. But if you look at that timeline it got very quiet, and it was, we might be more accepting of racism or rape than we are of Republicans. It started to look like that.
TURNER: Thank you for telling me truth on that, Jake. I mean, I hate that, you know, Fairfax has to go, too, but when Northam was running in 2017, you recall because of a labor union, he wouldn&#8217;t put Fairfax&#8217;s picture on his literature.
CUCCINELLI: That&#8217;s right.
TAPPER: Thanks one and all for being here.
</blockquote>

WATCH: Democrat Blames Trump For Virginia Racism Scandal, Gets Destroyed On CNN

Buzzfeed&#8217;s unethical publishing of an unverified dossier alleging numerous salacious acts committed by President Donald Trump angered CNN anchor Jake Tapper.
Emails released as part of a lawsuit reveal the CNN anchor told Buzzfeed Editor-in-Chief Ben Smith that publishing the document &#8220;makes the story less serious and credible&#8221; and &#8220;damaged its impact,&#8221; according to a review of the emails <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/08/jake-tapper-buzzfeed-dossier/">by The Daily Caller&#8217;s Chuck Ross</a>.
So, reporting on the unverified document from the angle that the president-elect was briefed on it was fine, but publishing the unverified document &#8220;damaged its impact.&#8221;
&#8220;That was pretty uncollegial[.] Not to mention irresponsible[.] No one has verified this stuff,&#8221; Tapper wrote Smith in an email on January 10, 2017.
CNN had run a story about President-Elect Donald Trump being briefed on parts of the dossier, and used that to bring the unverified gossip document into the nation&#8217;s attention. Shortly after the CNN report, Buzzfeed published the dossier in full, which had been circulating among newsrooms for the months prior, but wasn&#8217;t published because no one could verify any of its claims. But reporting on it from the angle that Trump was briefed on the dossier allowed the media to get around that problem.
Smith responded to Tapper&#8217;s email by saying it &#8220;was not an easy call&#8221; to decide to publish the dossier.
&#8220;Collegiality wise it was you stepping on my dick,&#8221; Tapper said in return. &#8220;You could have waited til morning.&#8221;
&#8220;Professionally this is unverified info[.] Your guys unlike us don&#8217;t even seem to know who the former agent i[s],&#8221; Tapper added. Smith responded by saying &#8220;of course&#8221; he knew who that &#8220;former agent&#8221; was.
A federal judge had ordered the emails&#8217; release as part of an order to unseal documents relating to a lawsuit from Russian businessman Aleksej Gubarev, who was mentioned in the dossier compiled by ex-British spy Christopher Steele. Gubarev was alleged in the dossier to have used his businesses to <a href="https://dailycaller.com/2018/12/19/buzzfeed-news-lawsuit-dossier/">hack Democrats&#8217; computers</a>, a charge he denied. Gubarev filed a lawsuit against Buzzfeed for publishing the claims, which eventually removed the mention of the Russian from the dossier it published. Gubarev lost his defamation suit against Buzzfeed.
Buzzfeed certainly took away from CNN&#8217;s &#8220;bombshell&#8221; report on the dossier, but publishing the full document did two things: (1) it showed just how much the media wanted to damage the incoming Republican president, and (2) it showed how absurd the contents were.
So, yes, it &#8220;damaged its impact&#8221; when people were able to see the 35-page dossier, which read more like a grocery store tabloid. It also helped launch the claims of &#8220;fake news&#8221; when the media decided to side-step ethics in order to report on unverified gossip against a Republican. One can&#8217;t imagine such a dossier being reported on or published if the target were an incoming Democrat president.
This also began the media&#8217;s present failures to verify any reporting when it damages Trump. Now, <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42409/daily-beast-targets-devin-nunes-thinly-sourced-ashe-schow">media outlets</a> report <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/39979/emails-reveal-media-outlet-ran-non-story-designed-ashe-schow">non-news</a> or unverified news from the angle that someone is investigating it, therefore it must have happened or is bad.

CNN’s Jake Tapper Thought Buzzfeed Publishing Trump Dossier ‘Damaged Its Impact,’ Emails Reveal

Ben Smith

BuzzFeed

Media Bias

Judging by the mainstream media, President Trump is set to lose in a landslide in 2020. The president&#8217;s popularity is at an all time low, they say, Rep. Nancy Pelosi whipped him in the shutdown battle (CNN is positively giddy), and Americans will soon demand a non-tweeting commander in chief (say all the multi-tweeting talking heads).
But Democrats keep coming up with new and almost hitherto inconceivable ways to absolutely blow what the MSM says should be a veritable cakewalk.
Like this: Democrats, who now control the House of Representatives, are moving to strike the phrase &#8220;so help you God&#8221; from the oath taken by witnesses who appear before the House Committee on Natural Resources. In a draft obtained exclusively by <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/dems-move-to-strike-so-help-me-god-from-oath-taken-in-front-of-key-house-committee">Fox News,</a> witnesses would be asked, &#8220;Do you solemnly swear or affirm, under penalty of law, that the testimony that you are about to give is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth?&#8221;
<blockquote>
The rules proposal places the words &#8220;so help you God&#8221; in red brackets, indicating they are slated to be cut. The words &#8220;under penalty of law&#8221; are in red text, indicating that Democrats propose to add that phrasing to the oath. The draft rules also remove the phrase &#8220;his or her&#8221; throughout the document, changing those two pronouns to &#8220;their.&#8221; The rules additionally modify all references to the committee&#8217;s &#8220;Chairman&#8221; to instead refer only to the committee&#8217;s &#8220;Chair.&#8221;
</blockquote>
Now, you would think that the Democrats &#8212; who have been whining nonstop since Trump took office &#8212; would have plenty of important things to get to work on since taking over the lower congressional chamber this month. They made hundreds of pledges throughout the 2018 midterms. And yet they&#8217;re spending their time wiping God out of oaths and inserting new grammatically incorrect plural pronouns for gender specific singular ones?
Indeed they are. And the party&#8217;s top tier of hopefuls for 2020 is going one step further: By making outrageous promises that most Americans are sure to really, really hate.
Take Sen. Kamala Harris of California, who tossed her hat into the ring on Monday (wait, sorry, not &#8220;her&#8221; hat, she tossed &#8220;their hat&#8221; into the ring). &#8220;I believe the solution &#8212; and I actually feel very strongly about this &#8212; is that we need to have Medicare for all,&#8221; Harris said on Monday during CNN&#8217;s special town hall for her (sorry, &#8220;their&#8221;). &#8220;That&#8217;s just the bottom line.&#8221;
CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper asked Harris, &#8220;So for people out there who like their insurance, they don&#8217;t get to keep it?&#8221; &#8220;Let&#8217;s eliminate all of that,&#8221; Harris said. &#8220;Let&#8217;s move on.&#8221;
Yup, not only can you not keep your doctor under Harris&#8217; plan, you can&#8217;t keep your insurance, either. Within 24 hours, though, Harris had done what any good Democratic politician always does &#8212; flip-flop, completely reverse course, saying she is open to more moderate health care reform plans.
Of course, Democrats have a history of winning on a specific platform and then doing something completely different. A perfect example is when Bill Clinton swept into office in 1992 on his &#8220;I Feel Your Pain&#8221; motto, only to spend 1993 mired down in a debate over a &#8220;don&#8217;t ask, don&#8217;t tell&#8221; policy for gays in the military. In 1994, Republicans won control of both congressional chambers, picking up 54 House seats and nine Senate seats.
So Democrats are truly most dangerous when they&#8217;re in power. Dangerous to themselves, that is.

CURL: Democrats Keep Coming Up With Fantastical New Ways To Lose In 2020

Bill Clinton

Kamala Harris

CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper came under fire over the weekend for what has widely been interpreted as a &#8220;homophobic&#8221; comment that he made about Roger Stone following the FBI arresting Stone as part of special counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s Russia investigation.
Stone, a longtime ally of President Donald Trump, was arrested on Friday and &#8220;indicted on seven counts: five counts of making false statements, one count of witness tampering, and one count of obstruction,&#8221; <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/42639/watch-trump-associate-roger-stone-arrested-6am-james-barrett">The Daily Wire</a> reported. &#8220;None of the charges include conspiring with Russian agents or WikiLeaks; instead, they are charges related to the process of the investigation, as is the case with most of the charges thus far brought by Mueller.&#8221;
Following Stone&#8217;s arrest and release on Bond, Tapper led a panel discussion on the political operative.
&#8220;I mean, the truth is no one&#8217;s going to cry if Roger Stone goes to jail or when he goes to jail,&#8221; CNN political commentator Jen Psaki said.
&#8220;He might like it,&#8221; Tapper responded.
&#8220;He might,&#8221; Psaki responded. &#8220;Who knows?&#8221;
WATCH:
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CNN&#8217;s Jake Tapper on Roger Stone potentially going to prison: &#8220;He might like it&#8221; <a href="https://t.co/otS6m013cw">pic.twitter.com/otS6m013cw</a>
&#8212; Ryan Saavedra (@RealSaavedra) <a href="https://twitter.com/RealSaavedra/status/1088989024532914176?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Tapper&#8217;s remarks, which were instantly seen by most as being homophobic in nature, were widely condemned on social media.
&#8220;Let&#8217;s play the &#8216;Imagine the fury if a conservative said something this flagrantly homophobic,'&#8221; Trump Jr. tweeted. &#8220;Truly disgusting&#8230; but of course no consequences.&#8221;
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Let&#8217;s play the &#8220;Imagine the fury if a conservative said something this flagrantly homophobic&#8221;
Truly disgusting&#8230; but of course no consequences. <a href="https://t.co/Eths0LnUJG">https://t.co/Eths0LnUJG</a>
&#8212; Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) <a href="https://twitter.com/DonaldJTrumpJr/status/1089655662689308672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 27, 2019</a></blockquote>
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The Hill&#8217;s Buck Sexton also weighed in, noting: &#8220;This was a disgusting and stupid comment. But few will say that publicly, because they don&#8217;t want their twitter DMs to get filled up with threats to call their boss or otherwise undermine their career.&#8221;
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This was a disgusting and stupid comment.
But few will say that publicly, because they don&#8217;t want their twitter DMs to get filled up with threats to call their boss or otherwise undermine their career. <a href="https://t.co/sFInVvoxnJ">https://t.co/sFInVvoxnJ</a>
&#8212; Buck Sexton (@BuckSexton) <a href="https://twitter.com/BuckSexton/status/1089173381612744704?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Sexton&#8217;s commentary on Tapper comes in response to Tapper&#8217;s well-documented pattern of behavior where he privately messages people on Twitter and complains about things they write or say about him. This pattern of behavior is common enough from Tapper that the <a href="https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/thinnest-media-skins-2018_us_5c084817e4b0bf813ef3c6cc">HuffPost</a> put Tapper at the top of its list of &#8220;The Thinnest Skins In Media In 2018.&#8221;
Republican strategist Arthur Schwartz also weighed in on Tapper&#8217;s comments, calling him &#8220;Disgraceful.&#8221;
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Disgraceful <a href="https://twitter.com/jaketapper?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@jaketapper</a>.
&#8212; Arthur Schwartz (@ArthurSchwartz) <a href="https://twitter.com/ArthurSchwartz/status/1088996351155818496?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 26, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Tapper&#8217;s comments were in part largely viewed as homophobic due to even more blatantly obvious examples of homophobia that appeared on social media earlier in the day from other media figures.
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He deleted it and blocked me after I called out his homophobic bigotry, but the internet is forever. <a href="https://t.co/2BKpqmkvKr">pic.twitter.com/2BKpqmkvKr</a>
&#8212; Chris Barron (@ChrisRBarron) <a href="https://twitter.com/ChrisRBarron/status/1088798043359662082?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 25, 2019</a></blockquote>
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Following his release from custody on bond, Stone told reporters on Friday that he would not testify against the president because that would require him to lie.
Fox News contributor and National Review columnist Andrew McCarthy noted that Stone&#8217;s indictment was further proof &#8220;that there was no criminal &#8216;collusion&#8217; conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia.&#8221;
&#8220;What matters is this: The indictment is just the latest blatant demonstration that Special Counsel Robert Mueller&#8217;s office, the Department of Justice, and the FBI have known for many months that there was no such conspiracy,&#8221; McCarthy <a href="https://www.nationalreview.com/2019/01/roger-stone-indictment-underscores-no-trump-russia-conspiracy/">wrote</a>. &#8220;And yet, fully aware that the Obama administration, the Justice Department, and the FBI had assiduously crafted a public narrative that Trump may have been in cahoots with the Russian regime, they have allowed that cloud of suspicion to hover over the presidency &#8212; over the Trump administration&#8217;s efforts to govern &#8212; heedless of the damage to the country.&#8221;

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