This week’s Liberal Media Scream features the back and forth over the Mueller report between President Trump and ABC’s George Stephanopoulos.
The newsman and former Clinton aide said the report did not dismiss “collusion,” and he went so far as to counter Trump’s claim that there was no collusion finding by asking if the president had read the report.
The report said: “[T]he investigation did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities…”
From the Sunday night “ABC News Special, President Trump: 30 Hours” as the two sat inside the presidential limo:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: What’s your pitch to the swing voter on the fence?
TRUMP: Safety, security, great economy. I think I’ve done more than any other first-term president ever. I have a phony witch hunt, which is just a phony pile of stuff. Mueller comes out. There’s no collusion. And essentially a ruling that no obstruction. And they keeping going with it. You know what, people are angry about it.
STEPHANOPOULOS: I don’t think that’s what he found. But we don’t have time for that now. We’ll talk about it later.
TRUMP: That is what he found, excuse me, he found no collusion. And he didn’t find anything having to do with obstruction because they made a ruling based on his findings and they said no obstruction.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He didn’t examine collusion, he laid out evidence of obstruction.
TRUMP: Are you trying to say now that there was collusion even though he said there is no collusion?
STEPHANOPOULOS: He didn’t say there’s no collusion.
TRUMP: He said no collusion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: He said he didn’t look–
TRUMP: George, the report said no collusion.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Did you read the report?
TRUMP, getting out of limo: Yes, I did and you should read it, too, George. Come on, let’s go. You should read it too, George.
Media Research Center Vice President of Research Brent Baker explains our weekly pick: “If Mueller had found ‘collusion’ under any name, that would dominate media airtime. But his report undermined the news media/liberal Democratic hopes, so Stephanopoulos resorted to word games when Trump offered a simple and accurate statement that Mueller didn’t find collusion with Russia by the Trump campaign. Stephanopoulos learned well from his mentor, Bill Clinton, the world’s best word-parser, using parsing to obscure the larger reality.”
Rating: Four out of five screams.
