CNN’s New Day anchor John Berman ridiculed Sen. Rand Paul after the Kentucky Republican called for the identity of the whistleblower at the center of House Democrats’ impeachment proceedings to be revealed publicly.
Paul, 56, demanded the media “do your job and print [the whistleblower’s] name,” while he was speaking at President Trump’s rally in Kentucky on Monday night. The president held the “Make America Great Again” rally in Lexington to campaign for Republican Gov. Matt Bevin, who’s facing an election on Tuesday.
The hosts of New Day, along with Clinton-era press secretary Joe Lockhart, were critical of Paul’s comments during their show Tuesday morning.
“He’s trying to get us to do his dirty work and say the name of the whistleblower, which is illegal,” Alisyn Camerota stated. “If he knows the name, if he thinks he knows the background, I mean, he’s giving all this information that is not proven. There’s no evidence of anything he’s saying. If he knows it, why doesn’t he say it? I’ll tell you why he doesn’t say it. Don’t answer that. Because it’s illegal, and he knows that.”
“He’s a small man,” Berman interjected, adding, “I have to tell you, what he just did there was small and cowardly right there.”
“If he’s got something to say, if he wants to break the law, do it, but to sit there on that stage and say, ‘Oh, others should do it right now. I’m not going to say it, I’m not going to say it, others should do my work for me,’” Berman continued. “That’s small.”
The whistleblower’s lawyer, Mark Zaid, accused Paul of disgracing his office by calling for the identity to be released.
“A member of Congress who calls for the identity of any lawful whistleblower to be publicly revealed against their wishes disgraces the office they hold and betrays the interests of the Constitution and the American people,” Zaid told the Washington Post.
Paul’s comments come after CIA agent Eric Ciaramella was accused of being the whistleblower. The whistleblower’s attorneys said they could “neither confirm nor deny” that Ciaramella is the whistleblower.
House Democrats are in the middle of the process of investigating whether or not Trump should be impeached over a phone call he had with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, which the whistleblower and Democrats argue shows the president attempted to withhold military aid to the country in exchange for an investigation into former Vice President Joe Biden.
