MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” appears to have had enough of the talking points offered by surrogates acting on behalf of Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton.
Even liberal co-host Mika Brzezinski pushed back when former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean tried on Thursday’s show to attack author Peter Schweizer, whose reporting on an apparent pay-to-play scheme involving Clinton and Russian president Vladimir Putin has Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign in a visible panic.
Dean accused Schweizer of taking money from “billionaires” who also support Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas.
But Dean’s attempt to draw attention away from Schweizer’s reporting got a backhand from Brzezinski, who accused the Democratic National Committee chairman of leading a “jihad” against the conservative author.
“So forget the author at this point,” Brzezinski said. “If the facts are true, we need to pursue that. You can go on your little jihad against the author, but it’s not going to change the facts. The facts are the facts.”
“I’m raising the same issue about the author that he’s raising about [Clinton],” Dean said.
The exchange occurred as Clinton is being assailed by multiple news organizations, on many different fronts, over her apparently lengthy history of ethical abuses.
The New York Times revealed Thursday that the Clinton Foundation had received millions of dollars from a group that was in the process of selling off to Russian investors a Canadian company that held U.S. uranium mines — a deal that required approval from the Hillary Clinton State Department.
Reuters reported that the Clintons would re-file six years worth of tax returns that stated previously that they had received exactly zero dollars from foreign donors.
Meanwhile, the Washington Post published a story questioning the former first family’s personal wealth and how it often mixes with the major dollars donated to its charitable foundation. And the Washington Examiner’s Sarah Westwood reported that 75 percent of winners of a prestigious State Department award during her tenure as secretary of state were Clinton Foundation donors.
Schweizer’s work is at the root of much of the recent eruption. On Monday, a New York Times article drawing on work from his upcoming book “Clinton Cash” suggested that the Clinton-run State Department had given preferential treatment to foreign donors who made sizable contributions to the Clinton Foundation, the details of which Schweizer said would be revealed in full in his forthcoming book.
In all, it has likely been a stressful week for the newly-announced Democratic presidential candidate’s messengers, who include campaign chairman John Podesta, Media Matters founder David Brock and former DNC chairman Howard Dean.
“Morning Joe” co-host Joe Scarborough noted that the Times, the Post and others have been doing hard reporting based on Schweizer’s work, suggesting that the Hillary opposition research appears to be much more than just the ravings of a conspiracy theorist.
Bloomberg’s Joshua Green jumped in to give his two cents.
“[T]here are serious charges. There is real reporting here,” he said.
“The sort of character assassination of Peter Schweizer. It is worth remembering he wrote a very well regarded book about the Bushes, he wrote a book about insider trading in Congress that led to the bipartisan Stock Act of 2012. He tends to kind of get smeared, but it’s worth remembering this is a serious guy who has done serious work that led to a serious article.”
Green added that the Clinton camp has yet to explain what, exactly, is wrong about Schweizer’s reporting.
Dean at one point also referred to the Grey Lady’s Clinton reporting as sloppy, and that was also met with pushback from the panel, particularly from Times reporter Jeremy Peters.
“I think that is an overly broad generalization that maligns my colleagues and it’s unfair of you,” Peters said. “I’ve dealt with you an awful lot, and I don’t think you would call me sloppy.”
On Tuesday, the hosts of “Morning Joe” were equally unimpressed with David Brock’s attempts to disqualify Schweizer’s work, with Brzezinski dinging the pro-Clinton activist for staking out a position against the forthcoming report despite the fact that he hasn’t actually read it.
