Former White House Senior Adviser David Plouffe and fellow This Week panelists got into a heated discussion about Benghazi on Sunday morning, after Plouffe said the conversation about the attack is being driven by a “loud, delusional minority” of the Republican Party.
After the release of an additional email about the attack and the talking points given to then-U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice, the debate over a possible White House cover-up has once again intensified. But Plouffe — who was on the original email, as ABC’s George Stephanopoulos pointed out — was quick to dismiss the electronic message as giving no new information.
“This has been politicized like we’ve never seen before,” Plouffe said, after pointing out that the lawyers have already dealt with the email release.
“There’s a very loud, delusional minority that’s driving our politics, that’s in control of the Republican Party,” he added. “There’s no conspiracy here at all.”
Fellow panelist Laura Ingraham shot back that the politicization was “going on in the White House.” Shortly thereafter, Crossfire co-host Van Jones said the panel should talk about “reality.” Plouffe added that there should not be another “bogus committee.”
“If this were George Bush who had done anything like this, you would be going nuts on him,” Ingraham countered. “You would be going ballistic.”
And just seconds later, things spiraled out of control. Members of the panel — which also included ABC contributor Cokie Roberts and former Sen. Rick Santorum (R-Pa.) — lashed out at each other, throwing verbal barbs in a heated debate over the difference between the Bush administration and Obama’s.
It was Santorum who finally put the nail in the coffin, ending the heated discussion.
“The only difference here is — between these other attacks and what happened here — is that the Bush administration did not put out a false narrative as to what happened in those situations,” the former Pennsylvania Senator said.
Jones tried to interrupt, but Santorum wouldn’t let him.
“Van, they put out a narrative that was not supported by the evidence, and they knew it,” Santorum said.
