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Former national security adviser Michael Flynn joins FBN’s ‘Lou Dobbs Tonight’ to discuss his presidential pardon in an exclusive interview.

LOU DOBBS, FOX BUSINESS HOST:  Last Wednesday, President Trump pardoned General Michael Flynn, after years-long persecution of the general.
 
The White House stated this in giving him a full and unconditional pardon: “General Flynn should not require a pardon. He is an innocent man. Even the FBI agents who interviewed General Flynn did not think he was lying. The prosecution of General is yet another reminder of something that has long been clear. After the 2016 election, individuals within the outgoing administration refused to accept the choice the American people had made at the ballot box and worked to undermine the peaceful transition of power.”
 
The general and his family were gracious in their expressions of gratitude, saying — quote — “The Flynn family is grateful to President Donald J. Trump for answering our prayers and the prayers of a nation by removing the heavy burden of injustice off the shoulders of our brother Michael with a full pardon of innocence. We thank President Trump for recognizing our brother’s sacrifice in this battle for truth, our Constitution, our republic, and all that America stands for around the world, a true beacon of liberty.”
 
Joining us tonight by phone is General Michael Flynn, who has served this nation with great distinction in the United States military and in his private life and political life as well.
 
General, first of all, it’s an honor to have you on the broadcast. And we are absolutely thrilled that President Trump took this action.
 
I know that there were reservations on your part and that of your defense counsel about accepting such a pardon.
 
Give us your state of mind and heart at this moment.
 
MICHAEL FLYNN, FORMER U.S. NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER:  Well, first, Lou, thanks very much for having me on your show and for your audience and for you personally.
 
You have been a beacon of light to this country, and have been really relentless in the pursuit of truth.
 
I honestly do not…
 
DOBBS:  Well, thank you.
 
FLYNN:  It has not sunk in yet, Lou. It will.
 
I would say, and I would just reemphasize some of the points that you made from my family’s letter, my faith in God. He’s an amazing spirit. He’s an amazing light in my life, the strength of my family, particularly my wife. We have been together for decades, since we were 13 years old.
 
And really what I call — I describe as true friends, Lou, patriots all across this country, friends that I have had from when I was a kid to those that I met in the military.
 
But the outreach by America to my family and I is just extraordinary. And it has really given me the resilience that I have been able to be blessed by to fight through this and get to the point where we got. And I really do appreciate the president for seeing what he and what the White House described as a pardon of innocence, because that’s exactly what it is.
 
DOBBS:  It is that.
 
It is also — I know your defense attorney, Sidney Powell, who has worked tirelessly and relentlessly on your behalf. She at one point hated to see the president give a pardon. And I know that means that you were concerned about it as well.
 
How did you overcome that — that reticence? I will put it that way.
 
FLYNN:  Well, I think, at a certain point in time, knowing myself, I’d have probably just continued to go and go and go.
 
But, as my family and I, particularly my wife and I, talked about it and honestly prayed over it, we came to the conclusion that this was the right moment in time to do this. The justice system that we were facing was just not going to function properly.
 
And it was very, very obvious that that was going to be the case. So, we went and made the decision that this was the direction that we wanted to go, and good enough for President Donald Trump for coming through. And we’re certainly grateful to him.
 
But, at the same time, we also know that this was a political persecution of the highest order, and not something that any American should ever have to go through.
 
DOBBS:  We still don’t know the — the — well, the full extent of the reporting on the moment at which you were being framed in the White House by two FBI agents. We still haven’t seen Agent Pientka’s so-called 302, which is a summary of that interview.
 
It’s extraordinary that the Justice Department still withholds this, the FBI, so much about your case.
 
Who do you hold responsible for what they did to you, the persecution of General Michael Flynn for more than four years?
 
FLYNN:  Well, I mean, I think, at the end of the day, people want me to say something — or, for years, do you — are you upset with President Trump? Are you upset with the White House?
 
And the answer is no. And the reason why, because this was a setup from the beginning. And it really — where accountability lies is, it lies in the previous administration. I mean, we all know that. The truth has been out now for well over a year…
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  … probably a year-and-a-half. And there’s been extraordinary, what everybody now knows as exculpatory evidence, right, that has come out.
 
And it’s come out through the…
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  … great fighting warrior strength of Sidney Powell.
 
And that type of information, you say to yourself, oh, my God, what was this — the previous administration doing during the campaign of Donald Trump, during the transition of Donald Trump, and then during — while he was in office?
 
I mean, this — and I said in my statement that this country should never be usurped by the power in our government and by the institutions of our government, Justice, federal law enforcement, intelligence, ever again.
 
And I know that the president feels the same way as I do. And we cannot have that in a country like we have, a beautiful, strong country like we have, and survive.
 
And, honestly, as I have gone through four years of this, Lou, so has the president. And, frankly, more damaging, has so — so has the country. And the country has been damaged by this.
 
DOBBS:  Absolutely.
 
FLYNN:  And I think we’re still feeling the pain in this recent election.
 
DOBBS:  Well, General Flynn has never flinched from a fight, and this time is no exception.
 
He’s engaged in a new battle, the battle for the White House and the future of this very republic.
 
We will continue our conversation with General Michael Flynn in just a moment. Please stay with us.
 
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
 
DOBBS:  We’re back with General Michael Flynn.
 
And General Flynn, obviously, a decorated and distinguished military career, led not only the — well, the military intelligence agency, the DIA, but also the 82nd Airborne and the Special Operations, the Joint Special Operations group, and served in Afghanistan and Iraq.
 
You — the view is, you inspire great fear in the deep state and in the political — the politicized intelligence agencies of the Obama administration.
 
Do you think that is much of the reason that those forces went after you, the FBI bald-facedly framing you?
 
FLYNN:  Well, I’ll tell you what, Lou.
 
I think that it’s that. And there are other considerations as well, that I know that they did not want me standing by — beside Donald Trump during his…
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  … certainly during his early days of his administration, because of the things that I — the systems that I know, the processes that I know, the — how the institutions function, particularly the intelligence community, particularly the Department of Defense, and even elements within the State Department, and other parts of our — other parts of our national security apparatus, which is both foreign and domestic.
 
So, it ranges. But it’s interesting that only — the transition conversation that President Obama had with President Trump, he only talked about two things, two people. One was Dear Leader Kim Jong-un, and the other was General Mike Flynn.
 
And it’s like, you say to yourself, what the heck, Lou, you know? I mean, it’s laughable, but it’s also very, very serious.
 
DOBBS:  Yes.
 
FLYNN:  And I would like someone with some guts, because I will ask them if I ever see him, is, why?
 
Why did he — why was he so afraid, why was he so fearful, and why did he have to mention that to Donald Trump, as though Flynn is public enemy number one? And so there’ll be more to come out — to come of that in the days and weeks and months ahead, Lou. But it’s a fascinating part of history and certainly part of my story.
 
DOBBS:  Well, we can’t wait to hear that part of the story, General.
 
Right now, we’re watching with interest your role in trying to make certain this president is not cheated from a second term in office. Tell us about how you’re applying your talents, your energy to support the president and the nation.
 
FLYNN:  Well, Lou, I have a great network of people around the country that I know that are trying to help understand what has happened.
 
We have a crisis in confidence in the very fabric of our country right now, and that’s our election system, our one person, one vote privilege that we have. And that privilege is given to us by the many, many millions of people who have sacrificed their very lives over the history of our country to give us that ability to have one person, one vote in a very free and fair and transparent election process.
 
You know, when you think about it, in 2000, Bush-Gore, we were worried about one county, right, one county in that — down in Florida. Now we’re worried about and we’re — and we have problems in, I mean, literally probably hundreds of counties, six — at least six states, maybe eight states.
 
You know, for your audience, because I’m not sure — I’m paying attention to them, but I have watched segments and certainly the large segments as much as I can of Pennsylvania, the hearings that Mayor Giuliani has led…
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  … Pennsylvania, Arizona, Michigan. There’s one going on in Georgia. I caught a little bit of that today. And that’s probably going to last into tomorrow.
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  And then we got a hearing over in Nevada right now.
 
So, the one thing that stands out, that jumps out at every American, because Mayor Giuliani is only bringing in a snippet of these great patriots who are coming forward bravely to testify, to show testimony to the egregious, fraudulent, corrupt and, in some cases, criminal behavior.
 
That last gentleman you had on, I think Ethan Pease, the Postal Service worker. The woman yesterday — I think it was yesterday…
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  … up in Michigan who was the I.T. worker who worked for this Dominion outfit, she gave great testimony.
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  The truck driver in Pennsylvania who drove trucks across a state line, I think New York to Pennsylvania.
 
DOBBS:  Jesse Morgan, right.
 
FLYNN:  Yes.
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  I mean, I think — I was told that driving ballots across a state line is a felony. He probably didn’t even know he was doing it.
 
But that kind of stuff — and then just listening to some of the stuff in Georgia, it’s just outrageous.
 
So, all that said…
 
DOBBS:  So…
 
FLYNN:  I’m sorry. Go ahead, Lou.
 
DOBBS:  No, I was just going to say, with all of that, are you as shocked as the rest…
 
FLYNN:  Yes.
 
DOBBS:  … of us that the Justice Department, the FBI is doing nothing with these obvious acts of electoral fraud and coordinated, orchestrated acts to shut down the count in battleground states, at least five of them, almost simultaneously, and for the attorney general to say, there’s nothing here?
 
FLYNN:  Yes, nothing here, yes.
 
DOBBS:  And then take it back the next day because there was such an out — reaction from the American public.
 
FLYNN:  It was outrageous. No, that was outrageous. That’s right. That’s right.
 
So, first of all, the American public right now has — and I don’t want to say zero, but damn close to zero confidence in — or they certainly have lost faith in many U.S. government institutions, our justice system, our federal law enforcement, elements of our intelligence community.
 
Well, we just can’t have that in our country, Lou. And this is just compounding it by what’s happening here. And when you — when people — and that — like, you asked that last gentleman, did you go to the FBI?
 
Well, the Postal Service has its own investigative services.
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  But we have — we have — I’m aware of people who are witnesses, one of whom is in ICU, another woman who’s had her house broken into twice, another woman who’s had her tires slashed, multiple threats to people’s lives, certainly to their job losses.
 
I mean, one of the — that woman up in Michigan talked about that yesterday. She had to move, change her phone number.
 
DOBBS:  Yes.
 
FLYNN:  She’s got two children. I mean, geez.
 
So, we cannot have that. And I have at least one example, and it’s actually more than that, but I will just — one example of someone going to the FBI, reporting what is clearly a crime, and then never hearing back from them. So, I don’t want to leave it at that with you right now.
 
DOBBS:  Yes, we have heard…
 
FLYNN:  But I’m telling you, we cannot have that in this country in this crisis that we are going through right now.
 
And the last point that I will add, Lou, is that our elections — our election process should not be decided in the courts. It should not be decided in the court system. It should be decided by the people of this country.
 
DOBBS:  Yes.
 
FLYNN:  And we have a constitutional process.
 
DOBBS:  Right.
 
FLYNN:  It’s a shame watching these legal battles that are going back and forth in the court system.
 
And, at the end of the day, the people of this country — and there’s a great — there’s a viral video out there of a great man, great gentleman up in Michigan who basically says, hey, we are not going to have confidence in this thing unless we get this right.
 
So, the governors of these various states, some of which I have mentioned, they’re going to have to have the guts to say, either we’re going to have a country and a fair and free election process, or we’re not.
 
And, if we don’t, I am afraid to think about what people will do in the future, because, again, we’re a constitutional republic. This is the — our ability to vote is a foundation.
 
DOBBS:  General…
 
(CROSSTALK)
 
FLYNN:  Go ahead, Lou. Sorry.
 
DOBBS:  Well, General, I know that you’re working as hard as you can to make certain that this president is not cheated of a second term, and that this nation is preserved.
 
You said that our election shouldn’t be decided in courts. And they sure as hell shouldn’t be decided in either Barcelona or Frankfurt, Germany.
 
General, it’s always great to talk with you. Thanks for being with us. And come back soon.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, thank you very much. Today it’s my privilege to present our nation’s highest civilian honor, the Presidential Medal of Freedom, to one of the greatest coaches in American history: the legendary Lou Holtz – a friend of mine. Great gentleman. Great man.

We’re delighted to be joined this afternoon by members of Lou’s wonderful family, along with the Director of National Intelligence, John Ratcliffe – John, thank you for being here; and Senator Lindsey Graham, who I think most people know – I would say they know you, for the most part; and Pat Cipollone, a big fan of Notre Dame. Right? Thank you, Pat, for being here.

Lou was born during the Great Depression in the steel town of Follansbee, West Virginia. We love West Virginia. He grew up in poverty in a two-room cellar. But as Lou says, I knew God and my family loved me, and their love was all the wealth I needed. That’s everything I needed. That’s all I wanted.

As a child, Lou sat on his uncle and grandfather’s lap and listened to Notre Dame football games on the radio. They were big fans of Notre Dame, I guess, even before you. That wasn’t too long ago, was it? (Laughter.) They were big fans. And you – so he learned at an early age about Notre Dame.

At the age of nine, he took the field in his first game. He then played throughout high school. And Lou went on to attend Kent State, where he did very well, on an ROTC scholarship.

After graduation, Lou served as an officer in the United States Army and then pursued his dream of coaching. He wanted to be a coach right from the beginning because he knew he was a leader. He didn’t have to say it; he knew he was a leader.

In 1961, Lou made what he described as the smartest decision of my life. And I knew your wife, and I will tell you, that was your smartest decision, right? (Laughter.) We got to know her well. She was strong and good. He married his wife of 59 years. Beth passed away just a short while ago, and it was a very tough time, I will tell you. It was a very tough time for Lou and the family. But we know that she’s looking down from heaven right now with incredible pride. She’s so proud of this man. I got to know her over the last few years, and she was a – she was a great woman. But she’s looking down right now. She’s very proud of you, Lou.

In 1969, Lou became head coach of William & Mary. And over three seasons, he won the Southern Conference and led the Tribe to their first bowl game in 22 years.

And, by the way – and I have to tell you, when we were researching this out, I knew he was supposed to be a good coach, but I didn’t know how good he was, because these stats are very amazing. You’ll see. I was really very impressed, John, I will tell you.

Lou then became head coach of North Carolina State, which had won only nine games over the previous three years. Not too good. He took it off – he took it over, and under Coach Holtz, they won the ACC title and achieved the highest national ranking in NC State’s history.

Lou went on to coach, and so I guess you were making a lot of money by this time because they were trying to get him to go to all these different schools. He was a hot coach. Nothing like being hot, right? (Laughter.) He had his choice. He had his choice to go into a lot of different places.

Lou went on to coach at the University of Arkansas. He built the Razorbacks up from a five-and-five record into a top five team in the nation. They won everything.

Lou left Arkansas with the best win-loss record ever and a very fat bank account. (Laughter.) He then coached at the University of – you were making a lot of money all of the sudden. Huh? I know how that works.

He then coached at the University of Minnesota, which was ranked dead last in the Big Ten. Before he signed his contract, he prayed, and then he did something that was unprecedented. He inserted a clause – with great negotiation talent, which he has – that they call today the Notre Dame clause. It stipulated that if Lou did really well and went to a bowl game, he would be free to go to Notre Dame should they ask him to go.

So he had something going, right? You great football player. You are – you are some player, I’ll tell you. (Laughter.) You are something. You just – just – and you’re – you weigh about 30 pounds less than you weighed when you played in the NFL, right? (Laughter.) I’m very impressed.

In just two years, he secured a top 20 ranking and propelled the Golden Gophers to victory at the Independence Bowl. So he was on his way to Notre Dame. He knew it. Nobody else did. I guess the Notre Dame officials knew it.

He was offered a coaching job at Notre Dame immediately, and he also took it immediately, as much as he loved the team that he just left. When he became the head coach a year later, the Fighting Irish were losing team. They were doing very, very poorly. Lou got to work and quickly returned Notre Dame to the status of a football powerhouse and the legend that they were.

At the end of Lou’s first season, the team faced off against their archrivals, the University of Southern California Trojans. The Fighting Irish were down 17 points in the fourth quarter, but they soon pulled off – Notre Dame – one of the greatest comebacks in college football history. They scored two touchdowns in less than eight minutes and then kicked a field goal in the final two seconds of the game. At that moment, Holtz said he felt the spirit of Notre Dame. He loved Notre Dame. And do you still remember that game?

MR. HOLTZ: Oh, very – my son roughed the punter.

(Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: Oh, I – (laughs) – you weren’t too happy about that.

MR. HOLTZ: Oh, no. I understood why a certain species of animals devour their young. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: So your son has a little of you in him as well. (Laughter.)

For the next decade, the Fighting Irish won 80 percent of their games and went to nine consecutive New Year’s Day Bowls. And in 1988, the cover of Sports Illustrated said, Notre Dame is back. Notre Dame is back. He was on the cover of Sports Illustrated and many other covers. Notre Dame remained number one in the country for the longest stretch in the school’s history.

See, I didn’t know all this stuff. I knew you were a great coach; I didn’t know you were this good, to be honest. (Laughter.) This is beyond a great coach. So you had the longest streak in the history of Notre Dame at number one. What do you think about that, Lindsey? Sounds like you in the Senate.

SENATOR GRAHAM: Yeah. (Laughter.) Except we don’t play with a helmet.

THE PRESIDENT: He had an easy race. You know, he had an easy race. The problem was his opponent had $140 million. That’s – that was a record, I guess. Wasn’t it, huh? Guess what? Here’s Lindsey.

During the tenure at Notre Dame, he coached a – Lou coached a record number of games, secured 100 victories, and delivered Notre Dame’s most recent national championship. So he did some job at Notre Dame.

Then Lou became the head coach at the University of South Carolina, which he loves. He loves South Carolina – which had won only one bowl game in 108 years. He was going to take it easy, and then he gets another offer. Man, oh, man. I’m watching that money just pile up. (Laughter.)

He was going to go and just relax now. He did his thing at Notre Dame. He won national championships – the longest streak. Then he goes to University of South Carolina, and I can imagine why. He loves – you do like money a little bit, don’t you? Right? He was offered a big deal. Lou tripled that number and secured a top 20 ranking immediately.

Over the course of his career, Lou won nearly 250 games – and is one of the highest ever, by the way – and is the only coach in NCAA history to take six different teams to a bowl game. Think of that.

Wherever Lou went, football glory followed. He was inducted into the College Football Hall of Fame in 2008.
And I will say this about Lou: Everybody loves him. Everybody respects him. He’s tough as hell, and yet they all respect Lou. They just – it’s amazing. They love him, and they respect him. Sometimes it’s a combination that doesn’t come together, you know? They respect, but you are – you are something. I never coached football; I coached life, he said. And it’s true. His players really always loved him.

He’s turned his inspirational story and motivational message into three best-selling books. He’s also been an exceptional philanthropist. That’s all that stuff that he collected. He’s opened educational opportunities for students, provided insulin pumps to diabetic children.

And we’ve just brought down the price and the cost of insulin. Right? You’re shaking your head. It’s amazing what we did, right? Insulin – you couldn’t buy it. It was destroying families. People were going without it. Now it’s $35, right? You can’t believe it. I see you’re an insulin pro. You’re involved, right? Family.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT: That’s great. No, it’s – we’ve done a great job with – with costs. But insulin, maybe, Lindsey, is one of the best – $35. They were paying 10 times that amount. You couldn’t get it. So we changed that around, Lou.

And supported cancer research. And has traveled to 13 countries to visit the American troops. Lou’s leadership and his faith and kindness have inspired and uplifted millions of fellow citizens.

He’s one of the greatest titans in American football history. And his towering reputation will endure forever in the chronicles of athletics, but more importantly, in the chronicles of life – because he’s really a life teacher. That’s what he is; he’s a life teacher. He teaches people how to live and how to live properly, and how to live with dignity.

So I’d like to now ask the military aide to come forward and prepare for me to give our highest medal. We have the Congressional Medal of Honor, and we have the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And I will say, I give away a lot of Congressional Medal of Honors, and that’s a tough one to get. You know, that’s a tough one to get, because they come in with – when they come in, a lot of times, mostly, they can’t come in for obvious reasons. But they come in where – they’re unbelievably brave people. And they have had more bullet holes and bullets shot at them and in them. That’s the Congressional Medal of Honor.

Your route is a much easier one. (Laughter.) As tough as it may have been, it’s a much easier one.

MR. HOLTZ: That’s true.

THE PRESIDENT: I always say that about the two.

MR. HOLTZ: I’ll remember that. (Laughter.)

THE PRESIDENT: It’s – your route is a much easier – the Presidential Medal of Freedom.

So I’d like to ask first Lou to say a few words, and then we’re going to present. Thank you very much.

MR. HOLTZ: Thank you. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President. I’m humbled by the various comments and the opportunity to receive this award.

But I want to assure you how proud I am not only to receive the award; I’m even prouder to receive it from President Donald Trump, who I think was the greatest President during my lifetime. And the things you’ve done for this country have given people the opportunity. (Applause.)

As far as making money – I do have to correct one thing, Mr. President. You talk about making money. When I went to Notre Dame, they had a policy: The head football coach was not allowed to make more than the president of Notre Dame. The president of Notre Dame was a priest who took a vow of poverty. (Laughter.) I made 95,000 (inaudible).

I get this award; I accept it humbly. And you don’t go in life saying I want to win this award. You just wake up one day and it happens. But this award, as great as it is, does not define who Lou Holtz is.

My beautiful family, my precious wife, my friends: You have determined who I am, and I just try to be a solid person. As I think it was said, the two most important days of your life was the day you were born; the other is the day you discover why you’re born. When we discover we’re born basically (inaudible) other people and overcome problems and difficulties that are going to come our way. And I just cannot be prouder to be a part of this country. I could not be prouder to receive this award from an individual I respect and admire as much as President Trump.

Thank you, sir.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. So nice. Thank you. (Applause.)

MILITARY AIDE: Attention to orders. Louis L. Holtz, an American sports legend, is awarded the Medal of Freedom. A member of the College Football Hall of Fame, Coach Holtz’s achievements include 249 wins, 12 bowl game victories, and a national championship. He is the only football coach to lead six different programs to bowl games. His tenure at Notre Dame was historic, securing 10 straight winning seasons and the 1988 National Championship.

Off the field, he’s a staple of sports television, a powerful motivational speaker, a devout Catholic, and a dedicated philanthropist. The United States proudly honors Louis L. Holtz for his contributions to our nation.

Signed, Donald J. Trump, the President of the United States of America.

(The Medal of Freedom is presented.)

THE PRESIDENT: Beautiful. (Applause.)

MR. HOLTZ: Thank you. Whoa. Okay, that’s it. (Laughter.)

Q Mr. Holtz, congratulations. How are you feeling?

MR. HOLTZ: I feel so indebted to so many people in my life that had such a positive influence on it. For a guy that graduated in the lower third of his high school class, I feel fortunate to be able to be here but also to be part of this great country and to be next to an individual that I respect as much as him.

So I say it: You’ve honored a lot of people. You go look at all the people – in Tiger Woods and Jack Nicklaus – they’re recognized for what they did. I’m recognized for what other people did. I never made a block or a tackle, but I did try to teach people to make good choices. That’s all I’ve ever tried to do. But thank you.

THE PRESIDENT: Such a great statement. Thank you, Lou.

Q Mr. President, Mitch McConnell says COVID relief may be in sight. Will you support this bill? Do you support –

THE PRESIDENT: I will. And I think –

Q – the 900-billion-dollar –

THE PRESIDENT: – we’re getting very close. And I want it to happen, and I believe that they’re getting very close to a deal. Yeah.

Q And you’ll support it? You’ll sign it?

THE PRESIDENT: I will. I will. Absolutely. Yeah.

Q Okay. And, Mr. President, can I ask you to respond to the comments by your Attorney General who indicated he has not seen, at this point, any evidence of fraud enough to overturn the election results? Given that, why is now not the time to concede?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, he hasn’t done anything. So he hasn’t looked. When he looks, he’ll see the kind of evidence that right now you’re seeing in the Georgia Senate. You know, they’re going through hearings right now in Georgia, and they’re finding tremendous volume. So they haven’t looked very hard, which is a disappointment, to be honest with you, because it’s massive fraud.

Whether you go to Wisconsin, where we just filed a case, or Michigan, or if you look at what’s happening in Georgia, as an example, or Pennsylvania; if you look at Nevada, which is moving along very rapidly, or Arizona – you saw those numbers come out yesterday – we found massive fraud. And in other states also. This is a – probably the most fraudulent election that anyone has ever seen.

Q Do you still have confidence in Bill Barr?

THE PRESIDENT: Uh, ask me that in a number of weeks from now. They should be looking at all of this fraud. This is not civil; he thought it was civil. This is not civil; this is criminal stuff. This is very bad criminal stuff.

So I just say this: We went through an election. At 10 o’clock, everybody said, That was an easy victory for Trump. All of a sudden, the votes started disappearing – miraculously disappearing. We found much of it, but we found far more votes than we need in almost all of these states. And I think I can say in all of these states, far more votes than we need to win every one of them.

And I want to just thank my team because my team is doing an unbelievable job. And more importantly, I want to thank the 74 million-plus people that voted, which, Lou, is the largest amount of people that a sitting President has ever had – 74 million-plus. And because the level of – of loyalty, I’ve never seen anything like it. All over the country, they know it was a fixed election. It was a rigged election. They know it, and I appreciate their support.

Thank you all very much. (Applause.)

President Trump claimed that the Justice Department and Attorney General William Barr “haven’t looked very hard” at fraud in the 2020 election. The attorney general told the associated press no evidence of election fraud that would change the election outcome has been found.

QUESTION: Okay. And, Mr. President, can I ask you to respond to the comments by your Attorney General who indicated he has not seen, at this point, any evidence of fraud enough to overturn the election results? Given that, why is now not the time to concede?

TRUMP: Well, he hasn’t done anything. So he hasn’t looked. When he looks, he’ll see the kind of evidence that right now you’re seeing in the Georgia Senate. You know, they’re going through hearings right now in Georgia, and they’re finding tremendous volume. So they haven’t looked very hard, which is a disappointment, to be honest with you, because it’s massive fraud.

Whether you go to Wisconsin, where we just filed a case, or Michigan, or if you look at what’s happening in Georgia, as an example, or Pennsylvania; if you look at Nevada, which is moving along very rapidly, or Arizona — you saw those numbers come out yesterday — we found massive fraud. And in other states also. This is a — probably the most fraudulent election that anyone has ever seen.

QUESTION: Do you still have confidence in Bill Barr?

TRUMP: Uh, ask me that in a number of weeks from now. They should be looking at all of this fraud. This is not civil; he thought it was civil. This is not civil; this is criminal stuff. This is very bad criminal stuff.

So I just say this: We went through an election. At 10 o’clock, everybody said, “That was an easy victory for Trump.” All of a sudden, the votes started disappearing — miraculously disappearing. We found much of it, but we found far more votes than we need in almost all of these states. And I think I can say in all of these states, far more votes than we need to win every one of them.

And I want to just thank my team because my team is doing an unbelievable job. And more importantly, I want to thank the 74 million-plus people that voted, which, Lou, is the largest amount of people that a sitting President has ever had — 74 million-plus. And because the level of — of loyalty, I’ve never seen anything like it. All over the country, they know it was a fixed election. It was a rigged election. They know it, and I appreciate their support.

Thank you all very much.

Thursday night’s ReidOut featured one of the ugliest news segments one will ever see. Over the course of eight-plus minutes, MSNBC host Joy Reid and far-left race-hustler Michael Eric Dyson viciously condemned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) as a “racist,” “terrorist,” ventriloquist (or “geppetto”) controlling black Kentucky AG Daniel Cameron (R), and worshipper at “the altar of whiteness” who “doesn’t give a damn” about those in poverty.

Dyson was spoiling for a fight from the get-go, denouncing McConnell as “tone deaf” and “color blind in the worst sense of the fashion” because “[h]e refuses to acknowledge the persistence of the color in the culture” in that being “black continues to be a thing that generates such deep and profound opposition.”

After Dyson said McConnell was both an “unwitting” and “conscious accomplice in refusing racial progress,” Reid derided the Senate filibuster as a “good, old-fashioned, southern technique” used by McConnell to tell Barack Obama that he was “not a real President.”

Reid turned her ire toward Cameron (whom she’s had no problem condemning as a betrayal to his race), insisting he “lie[d]” in order to “let white offices off for killing Breonna Taylor.” 

As for his mentor, Reid claimed McConnell was equally responsible for the “diminution of black life over the last ten years as Trump.”

If they had changed gears to something totally different, there would have been more than enough screaming Notable Quotables. But things were only getting started.

Instead, Dyson replied that President Trump should be seen as a “fast terrorist” and “racist” (in terms of enacting physical harm to black people) with McConnell should be viewed as a “slow” “terrorist” and “racist” (in that his policies lead to “racial revulsion”).

Dyson then went full racist, spewing venom about McConnell being proof that America’s “real religion” remains “whiteness” with McConnell at the altar and playing the role of ventriloquist controlling blacks like Cameron:

And to proudly stand up and say that he wanted to make Obama a one term President, this shows us that the real religion in America is whiteness. The real politics in McConnell’s orbit are whiteness. The worship of whiteness at the altar of whiteness genuflecting before the god of whiteness. And therefore, Donald Trump is the product of a womb that has generated this disfigured first person in terms of politics. But McConnell is part of that womb. Mitch McConnell gives life and breath to the very denunciation of blackness that Donald Trump has been so vehemently denounced for. And look, he then puts forward a black face representation, literally in Daniel Cameron, so that there’s a ventriloquism going on. Daniel Cameron’s mouth is moving. Mitch McConnell’s thoughts are coming through his tongue. This is the worst geppetto we’ve seen and pulling those strings is one of the most — was one of the worst white supremacist enactments that we’ve seen in the last 15 years in American politics. 

Reid didn’t push back on any of that, piling on the hatred by insisting that McConnell “den[ied]” Barack Obama’s “humanity and right to even occupy the office,” which was a farce considering the fact that Obama was allowed to have cabinet vacancies confirmed, debt ceiling packages passed, legislation sent to his desk, not subjected to an impeachment trial, and even granted some judicial appointments.

The deranged MSNBC host also worked in another pot shot, claiming that McConnell (and not Senate Democrats) is responsible for the lack of coronavirus relief for struggling Americans (click “expand”):

REID: [T]his guy was against — he was for having sanctions on South Africa. That’s an actual true thing. For him to have devolved into whatever this is that Mitch McConnell is now, blocking the John Lewis bill on voting rights from getting to the floor, blocking people from getting rent relief, people are hungry, people are standing in food lines. People are suffering, and he doesn’t give a damn. If people can devolve that much, I don’t know how we reckon with race in America. Do you have an answer for that in this book? [LAUGHS]

DYSON: Well, this is what is true. First of all, he was mistakenly there. He happened to be there. He was accidentally there. He did not deliberately go to attend the March. He even admitted that he couldn’t hear the words Martin Luther King Jr. uttered that day and this many years later, he still cannot hear the resounding echo of an edifying, sonic appeal from a majestic trumpet of conscience like Martin Luther King Jr. He still is tone deaf. He still is incapable of listening to calls and cries of black people who say what will be done in the Senate to at least acknowledge the centrality of race and the degree to which black people continue to be punished by legislation and practices on the street. 

And if all that was insufficient, Reid painted Senator Tim Scott (R-SC) as a betrayal to his skin color by allowing himself to be McConnell’s “faceman” for his “weaker” attempt at police reform.

Reid argued in a short segment before Dyson that “the bills the man Kentuckian first named Moscow Mitch has brought to the floor have been much weaker versions of House bills, especially the police reform legislation the Senate pushed in reaction to a comprehensive house bill following the murder of George Floyd this summer.”

And after a break, Reid added that it’s McConnell’s fault (instead of Senate Democrats filibustering) that police reform hasn’t passed.

To Reid, the Senate Republican bill wasn’t spearheaded by Scott, but instead a display of tokenism (which she falsely claimed had successfully passed): “[T]he House had passed a much more comprehensive one with chokehold bans and banning no knock warrants and qual — just — getting rid of qualified immunity. They passed a weaker version in the Senate and shoved Tim Scott out front to be the faceman for it.”

This vile, ugly rhetoric calling McConnell a racist, terrorist, and ventriloquist controlling black Republicans was made possible thanks to supportive ReidOut advertisers such as Gillette, Priceline, TD Ameritrade, and WeatherTech. Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.

To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from December 3, click “expand.”

MSNBC’s The ReidOut
December 3, 2020
7:37 p.m. Eastern

JOY REID: Today, Mitch McConnell wrote an editorial touting civil rights record. Yes. That Mitch McConnell. He was responding to a piece from a voter asking what happened to the moderate he originally voted for, the one who attended the March on Washington as a young man and publicly “disagreed with President Donald Reagan about” sanctioning South Africa over apartheid. But who, once President Obama was elected, that voter says, he “watched in absolutely amazement that McConnell fought Obama on every single issue.” The writer cited McConnell saying that “the single most important thing we want to achieve is for President Obama to be a one-term President” in his rebuke. In his defense, McConnell notes that he voted for Trump’s criminal justice reform bill and one of the “former staffers, Daniel Cameron, made history…as Kentucky’s first African-American attorney general.” You know, Daniel Cameron. The attorney general who was accused of lying about the Breonna Taylor case by one of his own grand jurors. And that reform? Well, that only passed after McConnell refused to bring it up during the Obama administration. Now, we could go on and on. In 2018, McConnell said blocking Obama’s Supreme Court nomination was his biggest accomplishment. Let me repeat that. His biggest accomplishment wasn’t anything he did on civil rights or help the American people. It was obstructing the first black President of the United States, who he pretended was a dummy president with no right to add members to the federal bench. Here he is actually laughing — HA HA — about how he blocked the judicial nominee.

SEAN HANNITY [on FNC’s Hannity, 12/12/19]: I was shocked that the former President Obama left so many vacancies and didn’t try to fill those positions, so — 

SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY) [on FNC’s Hannity, 12/12/19]: I’ll tell you why. I’ll tell you why. I was in charge of the — of what he did the last two years of the administration. Ha ha ha. 

HANNITY [on FNC’s Hannity, 12/12/19]: And I will give you full credit for that. By the way, take a bow. 

REID: HA HA HA HA. McConnell is so determined to stamp out progress in America, he literally calls himself the grim reaper when it comes to passing bills that help ordinary people, like expanding healthcare or voting rights act bill that’s named by actual civil rights hero John Lewis. 

MCCONNELL [on 04/22/19]: Let me tell you this, if I’m still in the majority leader of the Senate, think of me as the grim reaper. None of that stuff is going to pass. 

REID: Ha ha ha ha. And the bills the man Kentuckian first named Moscow Mitch has brought to the floor have been much weaker versions of House bills, especially the police reform legislation the Senate pushed in reaction to a comprehensive house bill following the murder of George Floyd this summer. And we’ll have more of that after the break.

(….)

7:44 p.m. Eastern

REID: In the opening of his new book, Michael Eric Dyson writes directly to Elijah McCalin, the 23 year-old black man who died last year in Colorado police custody: “Dear Elijah, we are about to see if it is true that we are one, to see if your death and those of Ahmaud Arbery, George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Hadiya Pendleton, Sandra Bland, Clementa Pinckney, and untold others are viewed as worthy of the moral revulsion and, from there, the change of practice and belief. That would prove a real reckoning is taking place.” Congress has not passed police reform. And not because the House hasn’t tried. Such reforms have met untimely deaths in Grim Reaper Mitch McConnell’s Senate. And I’m joined now by Michael Eric Dyson, distinguished professor of African American and Diaspora Studies at Vanderbilt University and the author of the Longtime Coming: Reckoning With Race in America. Michael, my friend, it is good to see you. We’re going to talk about the book. But I want to very quickly ask you what you make of this attempt by McConnell to rebrand himself in part by touting police reform, having signed a bill. He blocked the one during President Obama’s tenure. And that the House had passed a much more comprehensive one with chokehold bans and banning no knock warrants and qual — just — getting rid of qualified immunity. They passed a weaker version in the Senate and shoved Tim Scott out front to be the faceman for it. Do you think there’s a way that McConnell can launder his reputation based on that? 

MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: No. It’s utterly ridiculous. First of all, this is revision history before our eyes. Usually people wait a couple years  — a few years to try to tell the story again of what they did and did not do. And yet, Mitch McConnell here is caught in the very vice grip of a revisionist esthetic that says we’re going to just paint everything like we did it all great back then like we’re doing it great right now. He wasn’t as great back then and he surely isn’t as great as he thinks he is now. And to stand in the way of the making sure that a comprehensive piece of legislation passes after one of the most rancorous and horrible summers that we’ve endured in the long trek toward transformation of race in the country, suggests that Mitch McConnell is not only tone deaf but he is color blind in the worst sense of the fashion, in the worst sense of the word. He refuses to acknowledge the persistence of the color in the culture. He refuses to acknowledge that black continues to be a thing that generates such deep and profound opposition that a policeman can put his knee on the neck of a prostrate black man laying on the pavement as his pallet and asphyxiate him before our eyes. Mitch McConnell is an — if — if, in one sense, unwitting, but in another sense conscious accomplice in refusing racial progress in this nation and now to paint himself, to portray him as somehow Martin Luther McConnell is deeply and profoundly problematic. 

REID: Your new book you talk about reckoning with race in America. And you know, I think about Mitch McConnell’s centrality in the story of race just in the last ten years. 

DYSON: Right.

REID: His blanket opposition and filibustering, using that good, old-fashioned, southern technique — this is a man originally from Alabama — 

DYSON: Right.

REID: — who used the filibuster prodigiously against President Obama, said you can’t even put a — a — anybody on the federal court. You don’t have the right. You’re not a real President. And then to try to tout his deputy becoming general attorney of Kentucky. And then for that black man to lie about the grand jury proceedings so that he could let white offices off for killing Breonna Taylor, I feel McConnell is just as center to the — the sort of, you know, diminution of black life over the last ten years as Trump. 

DYSON: There is no question about that. That on the one hand — you know, I talk about fast terror and slow terror. Fast terror is when bombs drop, when they lynch black people, and hurt us very explicitly by the police who hurt and harm and kill us. Slow terror is kicking kids out of school, denying opportunity to be fed both mentally and physically. Mitch McConnell, in this sense, if Donald Trump is a fast terrorist, is a racist, then Mitch McConnell is taking a slower train towards racial revulsion. He is enacting some of the worst practices we have seen in the history of this nation in regard to a senator blocking the coming to fruition of legislation that could relieve the hurt and suffering of black people. And to proudly stand up and say that he wanted to make Obama a one term President, this shows us that the real religion in America is whiteness. The real politics in McConnell’s orbit are whiteness. The worship of whiteness at the altar of whiteness genuflecting before the god of whiteness. And therefore, Donald Trump is the product of a womb that has generated this disfigured first person in terms of politics. But McConnell is part of that womb. Mitch McConnell gives life and breath to the very denunciation of blackness that Donald Trump has been so vehemently denounced for. And look, he then puts forward a black face representation, literally in Daniel Cameron, so that there’s a ventriloquism going on. Daniel Cameron’s mouth is moving. Mitch McConnell’s thoughts are coming through his tongue. This is the worst geppetto we’ve seen and pulling those strings is one of the most — was one of the worst white supremacist enactments that we’ve seen in the last 15 years in American politics. 

REID: You know, and your — you – you — you write about reckoning with race. Talk to me about how we do that when somebody like this guy can start off at the March on Washington at 20 years old and get all the way here, right? Get all the way to the place where he’s denying a black President’s humanity and right to —

DYSON: Right. 

REID: — even occupy the office. If he can fall that far, this guy was against — he was for having sanctions on South Africa. That’s an actual true thing. 
                            
DYSON: Right. 

REID: For him to have devolved into whatever this is that Mitch McConnell is now, blocking the John Lewis bill on voting rights from getting to the floor, blocking people from getting rent relief, people are hungry, people are standing in food lines. People are suffering, and he doesn’t give a damn. If people can devolve that much, I don’t know how we reckon with race in America. Do you have an answer for that in this book? [LAUGHS]

DYSON: Well, this is what is true. First of all, he was mistakenly there. He happened to be there. He was accidentally there. He did not deliberately go to attend the March. He even admitted that he couldn’t hear the words Martin Luther King Jr. uttered that day and this many years later, he still cannot hear the resounding echo of an edifying, sonic appeal from a majestic trumpet of conscience like Martin Luther King Jr. He still is tone deaf. He still is incapable of listening to calls and cries of black people who say what will be done in the Senate to at least acknowledge the centrality of race and the degree to which black people continue to be punished by legislation and practices on the street. So Mitch McConnell ain’t never been there for real to begin with, and even now, yes, how we reckon with it because black folk know this ain’t the first time we done seen this. We have seen this from get-go. We have seen this from the very beginning. White people who pretend to be our friends and then stab us in the back and what we understand is that Mitch McConnell is showing us that diversity by itself without equity, without justice, means nothing. Think about it. The police people who killed George Floyd, two white men, a black man, an Asian man, that’s diversity, but diversity toward an unjust goal. That’s diversity but without equity being embraced. So, Mitch McConnell is articulating the noble ideals and words but he is falling short on their follow-through. But black people always been dealing with this from the very beginning. This ain’t the first time. [SKYPE AUDIO CUTS OUT]

REID: Yeah. 

DYSON: We’ll be hearing people standing up, believing that God who overcomes, we believe in people who transcend barriers and we know that —

REID: Yeah. 

DYSON: — blackness will survive, even in this hateful white. 

REID: The book is Longtime Coming: Reckoning With Race in America. Another must-read book from Michael Eric Dyson. My friend, thank you very much. Really appreciate you being here tonight. 

Network television has devoted this fall season to the BLM narrative and endless racial guilt-tripping. Television writers apparently prefer that white Americans walk on eggshells in their relationships with black friends and neighbors rather than just treat everyone as fellow human beings.

The latest installment in race-obsessed television programming came from CBS’s sitcom The Unicorn. In this week’s episode, “It’s the Thought That Counts,” on December 3, white character Forrest (Rob Corddry) gives his friend Ben’s (Omar Benson Miller) son, Noah (Devin Bright), a plastic neon blue squirt gun during a birthday party. It doesn’t go over well with Ben because of “the color of my son.”

Forrest: And, uh, last but not least– and I know what it says on the side… For Noah, a water gun. 

Noah: Oh, wow. Thanks, Forrest! 

Forrest: Yeah. 

Noah: I’ve never had one of these before! 

Forrest: Cool! That’s great.

Ben: Hey, Forrest, did you just give Noah a water gun? 

Forrest: Yes, I did.

Ben: Great. Now I have to go take it away from him. 

Forrest: Take it away? Why? What? He’s– He loves it. 

Ben: There’s a reason he’s never had one before, Forrest. It looks like a gun. 

Forrest: It doesn’t look like a gun. It’s neon blue. What am I missing here? 

Ben: Uh, it’s not about the color of the gun. It’s about the color of my son. Yeah. It’s not safe for him to be out waving that thing around. He and I had that talk a long time ago. 

Forrest: MM. 

Ben: Hey, Noah. Noah. Hey. Don’t you run from me.

Forrest: (Sighs) God, I should’ve just taken the bite on the nose. 

After this innocuous gift, the rest of the episode devolves into a half-hour of anguishing about racial insensitivity. The toy set-up is likely a reference to the sad case of 12-year-old Tamir Rice. Rice was tragically killed while pointing a realistic-looking black toy gun at a police officer. But must the audience now pretend that an obvious blue translucent toy is something black children can never play with? Or that black children can never have water gun fights with non-white friends?

The rest of the episode lays the white guilt complex on thick. Forrest’s wife worries about having committed “microaggressions” with her black friend (Ben’s wife) and reads Robin DiAngelo’s racialist tome White Fragility. Forrest, who works in human resources training people in “implicit bias,” openly wonders how he failed to be “woke” enough. 

The episode ends with Ben giving Forrest a lecture about “doing the work” and “listening” to black people. Ben complains about how others say black people are “doing it wrong” when they protest. If he means the Black Lives Matter “protests” that lead to billions of dollars in damage from looting and riots, then that is “doing it wrong,” very wrong.

Throughout this half-hour left-wing guilt trip, there is very little in the way of actual comedy. It was not a comedy episode so much as a critical race theory training session. Is there any audience still left who wants to sit through that?

This rant was brought to viewers in part by Subaru. You can fight back by letting these advertisers know what you think of them sponsoring such content.

Cable news daring, Resistance author, and President Trump’s niece Mary Trump appeared on Wednesday’s Cuomo Prime to warn that the “reckoning” against her uncle was not the 2020 election. Instead, she painted the need for there to be an ever-persistent war against him (and ostensibly his supporters): “[W]e need to be on our guard and continue not to put anything past him because, yes, the pardons are demoralizing …What I’m much more concerned about what’s going on behind the scenes. We need to be vigilant.”

Having actively supported Democrats and campaigned for Joe Biden, Trump was right at home alongside CNN host Chris “Fredo” Cuomo. Was it to break news (other than announcing a second anti-Trump tome)? Nope. But since CNN wants to spoon-feed viewers with the same old, same old, they decided to have another go of it with the President’s estranged family member.

In typical fashion, Cuomo did not even attempt to remain objective but instead commiserated with the person whose tell-all book left some wondering if she had any motivations ‘besides collecting a paycheck.’

The leftist host was eager to get her opinion on why she thought the election was not the reckoning she hoped for: “Isn’t the reckoning what happened in the election that is getting tossed out. Or is it going to be something else.”

Her response was just as partisan: “One, we didn’t get an immediate result which we should have been prepared for, but weren’t. And secondly Biden didn’t win in a landslide which is really what we needed in order to repudiate Donald, his administration and all of his enablers.”

As is often the case with CNN, there was no attempt to validate their opinions or even report on the news of the nation. In its place was plenty of apocalyptic (yet tiresome) rhetoric: “I don’t hold out much hope for the Republican party, …I think they’re going to continue to do what they believe is in their best interest, which for them is always clinging to power no matter what it might do to the rest of the country or to our democracy.”

The “interview” if you could call it that, ended with Trump giving her opinions on if her uncle would run again in the future: “I think that he’s much more likely to take the position of spoiler because he lost so decisively and because he cannot bear the thought of losing, he’s going to put considerable energy, at least as long as he’s able to into delegitimizing Joe Biden’s win and his administration.”

Notice how Trump both lost in a landslide and yet he didn’t in the same interview. Once again, CNN abandons rationality and facts in their quest to bash the President through any means necessary.

This CNN bias was sponsored by Fidelity and Uber. Click on the links to let them know what you think.

A transcript of the December 2nd Coverage is included below:

Cuomo Prime Time
12/2/20
9:35 PM ET

CHRIS CUOMO: So now what? When Trump is gone, isn’t the problem over? I don’t think so. I think the people who remain are the problem. But now I have another take for you. Even as the Biden transition is underway, the President’s desperate cling to power is actually having an effect on our political fault lines. And my next guest says that’s what you need to look at. It is not just about if Trump got another four years, but as a clinical psychologist who delved into his psyche and understanding the effects that he can have, now that he’s on his way out, Mary Trump still doesn’t like what she says — what she sees because of what the impact could be even after he is gone. How so? Mary Trump, President’s niece, author of “Too Much and Never Enough” has a book coming out in July about exactly this. The book is called “The Reckoning.” Isn’t the reckoning what happened in the election that is getting tossed out. Or is it going to be something else.

MARY TRUMP [Niece of the President]: Hi, Chris. Yeah. I wish it had been the election. But unfortunately two things. One, we didn’t get an immediate result which we should have been prepared for, but weren’t. And secondly Biden didn’t win in a landslide which is really what we needed in order to repudiate Donald, his administration and all of his enablers. So what’s happened now is it’s given him an opportunity to continue to sew division, to continue to act as if there was discrepancies with the vote tally. To delegitimize the incoming administration. And because Republican leadership refuses to take a stand and speak the truth, Donald has even more of an opportunity to, you know, stoke his base and sew division among us. And it is very, very dangerous. 

CUOMO: I would like to counter your case. I could argue that Biden has the same electoral margin that Trump called a landslide. He had the most people ever come out for him in history. But I agree with you because the second most votes ever went to Trump. And they did well on the congressional side. You can look at that either way saying people who are still having misgivings about Democrats still voted against Trump. But how is the worst yet to come? 

TRUMP: That is going to depend largely on Donald’s post inauguration life. It’s going to depend on how the Biden administration or at least Biden’s Attorney General handles the path what may or may not have happened in the last four years, particularly in the 79 days between the election and the inauguration. And it’s going to depend in part on, you know, whether or not we’re going to see state charges. I don’t hold out much hope for the Republican party, which is why I didn’t mention them. I think they’re going to continue to do what they believe is in their best interest, which for them is always clinging to power no matter what it might do to the rest of the country or to our democracy. 

CUOMO: Biden has signaled he doesn’t want to give any energy to scrutinizing Trump. On the state side, we will have to see, but that could be as much about money as about facing prosecution. Your uncle the other day said to a crowd, we’re trying to get four more years right now. If not, I’ll see you in four years. 

TRUMP: I think that’s a ploy. That’s a means to get people to continue to support him financially. It’s a way to get people to keep coming to his rallies and to, you know, I believe he’s trying to counter program the inauguration of President Biden. So I don’t put much stock in that for very various reasons. First of all, I think Donald will be too busy dealing with lawsuits and dealing with those potential state charges. –

CUOMO: Well they keep filling up his coffers. He’s at $170 million now. He could use it for whatever he wants unless the donation is over $5,000 and I don’t know how many of those he has. We’ll see what they disclose. But it seems like his help me fight this election may be help me fight for my own better future. 

TRUMP: It may, indeed. And, you know, I think it is disgraceful, of course. But the people who support him are throwing money at him willingly. And I honestly don’t know what to say to them. That’s their choice. 

CUOMO: You don’t think he’ll run again? 

TRUMP: I don’t. I don’t think he’s going to be able to. I think that he’s much more likely to take the position of spoiler because he lost so decisively and because he cannot bear the thought of losing, he’s going to put considerable energy, at least as long as he’s able to into delegitimizing Joe Biden’s win and his administration, which, again, is terrible for our country. And I think at that point we need to look at the Republicans in power and, you know, lay the blame at their feet at that point because they would be in a position to stop this insanity and thus far they seem not to be willing to do that because they know they need Donald’s base. 

CUOMO: The reTrumplicans. Is the worst we can expect to see out of your uncle between now and the end, just a frenzy of weird pardons and maybe a self-pardon. Do you think he has the power to tell people to resist the inauguration? 

TRUMP: I think we have some glimpse of what he’s capable of in what’s going on down in Georgia. An election official down in Georgia who from what I understand is a Republican has made a plea to Donald and Republican leadership to stop sewing doubts about that election because it’s putting people’s lives in danger. So what does Donald do? He doubles down. He doesn’t care. You know, he’s going to do whatever he needs to do to change the subject, to keep people on his side, to keep people believing that he actually won an election that he lost by at least six million votes. So we need to be on our guard and continue not to put anything past him because, yes, the pardons are demoralizing. They’re a disgrace. And his, you know, attempt to preemptively pardon and his children and himself, we’ll deal with that when the time comes. What I’m much more concerned about what’s going on behind the scenes. We need to be vigilant. 

CUOMO: Get the book out. You may want to rush it because we’re living that consequence right now. Mary Trump, be well. Thank you for the insight. 

Someone might need to tell CNN host Jake Tapper that President-elect Biden had already nominated a press secretary (and who happens to be a former colleague of said anchorman). Because given his quips about Biden’s protective boot and playful questions about what Vice President-elect Kamala Harris would call her husband once in office, Tapper’s Thursday interview came off as beyond softball. And for most of the time, he was probing them from the left.

Tapper kicked off his hard-hitting questioning with this zinger about the boot Biden needed to wear after breaking his foot playing with his dog:

TAPPER: Before we get started, you’re not wearing your big boot anymore but you have your —

BIDEN: Well, I wear the big boot most of the time, but when coming out here it’s just kind of clumsy, so they gave me this little thing to work.

TAPPER: How is your foot and what happened?

A better question Tapper could have asked would’ve been about why Biden refused to allow the press pool to see him exit the hospital. Instead, the only video of his release came from someone watching at a distance.

A few minutes later, Tapper bizarrely deviated from a question about Biden selecting one of his toughest primary competitors as his running mate to what title Harris would give her husband Doug Emhoff, second gentleman or second dude (Click “expand”):

TAPPER: [B]y the way, is he the second gentleman? Is he the second dude? What should – what should we be calling him?

KAMALA HARRIS: [Laughter] Well, I think that the term has evolved into the second gentleman.

TAPPER: The second gentleman.

HARRIS: Yes. Yes.

TAPPER: I like second dude, but I will defer.

HARRIS: I think some of his friends are inclined to say that.

Tapper was content with her calling him “honey.”

One of the questions Tapper likely thought was a toughie was designed to press Biden on filling his cabinet with more people form the far-left. “Last month Senator Bernie Sanders told the Associated Press it would be, ‘Enormously insulting’ if your cabinet, the Biden-Harris cabinet, ignored progressive voices. Who would you point to now as a leading progressive voice in the cabinet,” he asked.

That question led to a strange interaction where Harris appeared to think Tapper was asking for a job interview, and she asked if he was a “progressive.” Biden would chime in moments later and seemed to forget the name of the guy he nominated to lead the Department of Homeland Security (Alejandro Mayorkas).

Here was that interaction (click “expand”):

HARRIS: Well we’re not done yet, Jake. So, we’re not even halfway there. So, I think we should have this conversation when we’re done. But–

TAPPER: Is that another interview offer you’re making because I’ll take it?

HARRIS: Do you consider yourself a progressive? [Laughter]

TAPPER: No.

BIDEN: Department of Homeland Security. Many people are progressive.

TAPPER: Homeland Security?

BIDEN: Yeah. No, I’m serious.

TAPPER: He’s a Progressive?

BIDEN: Yeah.

The only time Tapper showed negative emotions during the interview was when he was huffing about Biden’s optimism about being able to work with Republicans. “Why have you not yet spoken with McConnell, and how can you be optimistic about working with a group of individuals who have not even yet acknowledged that you’re the President-elect,” he wanted to know.

Towards the end of the interview, Tapper pressed the duo on how Harris wanted President Trump prosecuted immediately but Biden wouldn’t order the Department of Justice to specifically go after Trump:

During the primary last year, Madam Vice President-elect, you told NPR that the Justice Department, quote, “Would have no choice but to prosecute President Trump” and that, quote, “There has to be accountability.” How does that square with what the President-Elect just said about not telling the Justice Department to go after individuals?

Tapper wrapped up the interview by weakly asking Biden what was going through his mind. What a tall order.

The transcript is below, click “expand” to read:

The Joe Biden & Kamala Harris Interview: A CNN Special Event
December 3, 2020
9:01:46 p.m. Eastern

(…)

JAKE TAPPER: Before we get started, you’re not wearing your big boot anymore but you have your —

JOE BIDEN: Well, I wear the big boot most of the time, but when coming out here it’s just kind of clumsy, so they gave me this little thing to work.

TAPPER: How is your foot and what happened?

(…)

9:19:26 p.m. Eastern

TAPPER: What has been — she was one of your fiercest competitors in the early days of the primary, and now she and Doug Emhoff – which, by the way, is he the second gentleman? Is he the second dude? What should – what should we be calling him?

KAMALA HARRIS: [Laughter] Well, I think that the term has evolved into the second gentleman.

TAPPER: The second gentleman.

HARRIS: Yes. Yes.

TAPPER: I like second dude, but I will defer.

HARRIS: I think some of his friends are inclined to say that. [Laughter]

TAPPER: But you’ll call him the second gentleman?

HARRIS: No, I’ll call him honey.

TAPPER: You’ll call him honey.

[Laughter]

TAPPER: Okay.

(…)

9:23:47 p.m. Eastern

TAPPER: Last month Senator Bernie Sanders told the Associated Press it would be, quote, “Enormously insulting” if your cabinet, the Biden-Harris cabinet, ignored progressive voices. Who would you point to now as a leading progressive voice in the cabinet?

HARRIS: Well we’re not done yet, Jake. So, we’re not even halfway there. So, I think we should have this conversation when we’re done. But–

TAPPER: Is that another interview offer you’re making because I’ll take it?

HARRIS: Do you consider yourself a progressive? [Laughter]

TAPPER: No.

BIDEN: Department of Homeland Security. Many people are progressive.

TAPPER: Homeland Security?

BIDEN: Yeah. No, I’m serious.

TAPPER: He’s a Progressive?

BIDEN: Yeah. And there’s a number of Progressives that are –

(…)

9:25:10 p.m. Eastern

TAPPER: When you take office, the Senate will either be 50-50 — that’s best case for you — or controls by Republicans. Many Republican senators including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have not even yet called you to congratulate you or said publicly that you are the President-elect, just acknowledge basic reality. You have retained and remained optimistic about your ability to work with McConnell.

Why have you not yet spoken with McConnell, and how can you be optimistic about working with a group of individuals who have not even yet acknowledged that you’re the President-elect?

BIDEN: I say this tactfully.

TAPPER: You don’t have to be tactful.

BIDEN: No, I do, because I don’t want — there have been more than several sitting Republican Senators who’ve privately called me and congratulated me. And I understand the situation they find themselves in.

(…)

9:42:40 p.m. Eastern

TAPPER: During the primary last year, Madam Vice President-elect, you told NPR that the Justice Department, quote, “Would have no choice but to prosecute President Trump” and that, quote, “There has to be accountability.”

How does that square with what the President-Elect just said about not telling the Justice Department to go after individuals?

(…)

Leading off Thursday’s ReidOut, scandal-ridden MSNBC host Joy Reid spun her latest web divorced from reality by comparing Senator David Perdue (R-GA) to Martha Stewart and insinuating that Perdue should be cuffed and jailed due to claims of insider trading that arose with the businesswoman in 2004.

Reid began with a bizarre, gleeful, and unhinged diatribe tying Perdue to Stewart:

Martha Stewart. Queen of domesticity. Baroness of the bunt cake. And ironic gal pal of Snoop — Snoop d-o-double chisel, ya nizzle? Now, despite the fame and her wealth, Ms. Stewart once sold a bunch of stock one day before those very stock prices plummeted. She never faced criminal insider trading charges but still served five months in prison for lying to authorities during an investigation with the sale. Enter Republican Senator David Perdue, who may or may not be able to whip a homemade creme fraiche. He was scrutinized for possible insider trading for his sale of more than $1 million worth of stock. No, the system must work differently for Perdue because the Justice Department, also known as Trump, Barr, and Associates, declined to bring charges. And now we’re learning that Perdue is the Senate’s most prolific stock trader. 

Reid cited a New York Times article about Perdue’s trading, but she left out the inconvenient fact that The Times piece made clear Perdue was, well, in the clear. 

“It’s the most complicated game of Jenga ever. You have David Perdue, who apparently just buys stock while he’s a senator, and, like, find out what’s happening through inside information and buys a lot of stock,” she later added.

Put simply, the gross comparison and facts weren’t on her side. Reid acknowledged that the Department of Justice cleared Perdue, but seemed to imply the system was rigged in his favor. But beyond that farce, the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Senate had both cleared Perdue.

In a press statement, Perdue campaign communications director John Burke emphasized that the Senator “doesn’t handle the day-to-day decisions of his portfolio – all of his holdings are managed by outside financial advisors who make recommendations, set strategy, and manage trades and personal finances.”

But again, those facts didn’t stop her from spending even more minutes and seconds of the A-block spinning this web with former Obama official-turned-cable news Russia collusion conspiracy theorist Chuck Rosenberg (click “expand”):

REID: But I want to get for — just and back a little bit up, Chuck, to this idea of Perdue himself. Because we — I started talking about Martha Stewart, right? Martha Stewart got in a lot of trouble for doing a small little bit of stock trading based on what was said to be insider information and then not telling the truth when she was confronted about it by the FBI. Sounds familiar from somebody who just got pardoned for that — for much worse. But David Perdue — what he seems to have been doing is systemically playing the market while he was a senator. In your view, is he potentially in legal trouble and is Kelly Loeffler in similar legal trouble? 

ROSENBERG: Right. Well, great question, Joy. First of all, trading a lot is not a crime. Trading more than any other senator is not a crime. But if he’s trading on inside information, meaning he has an advantage that you and I as members of the public don’t have, and he’s trading on that, that’s not just the problem, that’s a crime. And if you recall, there was a congressman from upstate New York, gentlemen Chris Collins, who is convicted of that, right? What we need to know is whether he had inside information and traded on it. You have to show he did it intentionally. And that’s always hard. But you know, I don’t think on a yard sign it would look very good to say questionable ethical behavior, but not indicted for it. [REID LAUGHS] That’s not really a campaign slogan. But that’s where we’re at right now and that is troubling. Is it criminal? Don’t know enough yet. 

REID: Well, I mean, by the way, they both have been saying — Loeffler and Perdue — part of their campaign thing is we never got indicted for any of this. I mean, so that is part of what they’re saying, believe it or not.

And again, there’s no there there or anything to investigate (as Rosenberg suggested). 

Whether it be the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, a local TV station, Politico, the Washington Free Beacon, or our friends at Townhall, the pieces debunking this nonsense span the spectrum.

Elsewhere in the lead-off segment, Reid re-upped the Democratic Party-dominated conspiracy theory that, while Georgia’s 2020 election wasn’t rigged, the Peach State’s 2018 election was, with now-Governor Brian Kemp (R) having “gamed” and “stole” “his own gubernatorial election when he was secretary of state so he could defeat Stacey Abrams and become governor in the first place.”

MSNBC’s insinuation that Perdue should be imprisoned was brought to you by supportive advertisers such as Ensure and Farmer’s Insurance. Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.

To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from December 3, click “expand.”

MSNBC’s The ReidOut
December 3, 2020
7:00 p.m. Eastern

JOY REID: Martha Stewart. Queen of domesticity. Baroness of the bunt cake. And ironic gal pal of Snoop — Snoop d-o-double chisel, ya nizzle? Now, despite the fame and her wealth, Ms. Stewart once sold a bunch of stock one day before those very stock prices plummeted. She never faced criminal insider trading charges but still served five months in prison for lying to authorities during an investigation with the sale. Enter Republican Senator David Perdue, who may or may not be able to whip a homemade creme fraiche. He was scrutinized for possible insider trading for his sale of more than $1 million worth of stock. No, the system must work differently for Perdue because the Justice Department, also known as Trump, Barr, and Associates, declined to bring charges. And now we’re learning that Perdue is the Senate’s most prolific stock trader. According to The New York Times, Perdue sometimes made 20 or more transactions in a single day and nearly 2,600 trades in a single term, most of which are in “companies that stood to benefit from policy and spending matters that came before the Senate as a whole, but before the committee and subcommittees on which he served.” I mean, when did he even have time to pass bills? Now, we know that almost none of the Trump’s campaign promises came true. But in particular, his vow to Drain the Swamp was clearly a joke because perhaps he, his cronies, and his family are that swamp’s main artery. And the fishy financial transactions of Perdue and fellow Georgia Senator Kelly Loeffler are the latest in this wide open, bums-out, naked corruption that we are seeing from the Republican party writ large. This corruption isn’t new, of course. But what is new is the Frankenstein monster that ate the Republican Party for lunch isn’t just Trump anymore. It’s an entirely new set of people who even Trump can’t get a stubby little arms around. It’s folks like Trumpian attorney Sidney Powell and Lin Wood, who are lighting up Republican infighting in Georgia in ways that could cause the grifty old party everything. Now, the attorney I just mentioned, Lin Wood, isn’t just stoking conspiracy theories about the election. He’s now accusing Georgia Republican Governor Kemp of being personally complicit in election fraud. Here’s what Wood said in rally that was streamed on NTD. 

LIN WOOD: He can resign. And as far as I’m concerned lock him up. 

CROWD AT GEORGIA RALLY: Lock him up! 

REID: You heard that. Lock him up. A man. A Republican white man. And a man who is so Republican he gamed his own gubernatorial election when he was secretary of state so he could defeat Stacey Abrams and become governor in the first place. That Brian Kemp. But isn’t even the wildest part of the fever swamp of delusion. Wood also told the audience — get this — not to vote in the Georgia run off because he says the system is rigged.    

WOOD: If Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue do not do it, they have not earned your vote. Don’t you give it to them. Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election? 

REID: I cannot make this stuff up. [INTRODUCES PANEL] Jason, I’m going to skip the fabulous woman in the glasses to go to you first, even though I’m tempted to go to her just because of her glasses. Jason, this is insane. It’s the most complicated game of Jenga ever. You have David Perdue, who apparently just buys stock while he’s a senator, and, like, find out what’s happening through inside information and buys a lot of stock. And then now you have Lin Wood saying, oh, don’t vote in the election and put him back in because it’s Brian Kemp, who kinda stole an election for himself. He’s also bad — I don’t understand it. Explain Georgia to me, please. Right now.

JASON JOHNSON: This — so, Joy — so, this Lin Wood thing, I watched this over and over again. I’m convinced that this a Scooby Doo episode. This is the point where he would tear off his mask and he’s Chuck Schumer. [REID LAUGHS] Like, cause this is — this couldn’t work any better for the democratic party. Like, they — they — Republicans have an advantage when it comes to — to turn out. Georgia has only been blueish for a month. But this is not just infighting. When you have people not just questioning the value and significance of voting, but Republicans actively telling other Republicans to not vote, they may seriously actually blow these elections. I want people to understand this about Georgia in case they — they’re confused how the state really plays out. Once you get outside of metro Atlanta, or Savannah. It’s trump country, okay? The only place where things are competitive is just how big metro Atlanta is and so these people are not outliers. They’re not crazy. They were in Alpharetta. That is a north Atlanta suburb, so if they can get a hearing in these places and say, yes, you shouldn’t vote in the election for the corrupt inside traders and instead let in the two guys who we say want to defund police, we would rather have that than somebody who doesn’t like Trump. I don’t know how this works. I don’t know how this mobius strip of campaign messaging works, but it doesn’t end up working for the Republican party. If I was Jon Ossoff and Warnock right now, they’re high-fiving. They may actually march into office based on this incompetence.

REID: I mean, if he ripped off his face and it was Chuck Schumer, I would — I would die. But you know, we’re at the point, Christina, where you’ve got Newt Gingrich, who invented the politics of personal destruction as the ultimate Georgia Republican, then saying, “oh, no. Don’t listen to Lin Wood. Don’t listen to Sidney Powell They crazy.” You have him going after them. They are all eating each other alive. And you’re right. It’s over two senators who both appear to be inside traders. 

CHRISTINA GREER: Yes. Indeed, Joy. And you know, I have asked you this several times. I keep asking you are they trolling us? Like, what is happening. Because you wouldn’t know that the Republican party — I’m mean, I’m literally confused. I feel like my Ph.D is just out the window because I am confused as to why it is the Republican Party has chosen this moment, Joy, because the Republicans need to hold onto the majority so that Mitch McConnell can try and slow down or obstruct any policy positions of Joe Biden. What the Republican Party is doing now is almost trying to make sure that the Democrats win in Georgia, take a majority, chum chuck Schumer is the majority leader. And then the Democrats will have unified government for at least two years and Joe Biden can actually try and push forward certain legislative agendas that, quite ho0nestly, they haven’t thought about since the first half of the first term of Barack Obama. So, this is, I think, a result of Donald Trump in the sense he is practiced the politics of individuality and so many of the people in his party have just catered to him. And so now the Republican Party, as a whole, has no real compass, no ideology, and now that Donald Trump is the loser, he will be leaving January 20 — by hook or courtroom — they are scrambling. And now we see, as Jason has said, they’re starting to eat themselves and sadly they’re going to eat their young. There’s not a vision about the future of the Republican Party with younger people across the country. Senators, members of the House, governors, who should be being [sic] elevated at this moment to think about 2024. 

REID: Well, their vision is don’t let them vote. I mean, it’s ironic Kemp could have crushed the belief of black people in voting. But instead, black folks, like, believe deeply in voting and are voting and they’re just like telling each other not to vote. It’s wild. But I want to get for — just and back a little bit up, Chuck, to this idea of Perdue himself. Because we — I started talking about Martha Stewart, right? Martha Stewart got in a lot of trouble for doing a small little bit of stock trading based on what was said to be insider information and then not telling the truth when she was confronted about it by the FBI. Sounds familiar from somebody who just got pardoned for that — for much worse. But David Perdue — what he seems to have been doing is systemically playing the market while he was a senator. In your view, is he potentially in legal trouble and is Kelly Loeffler in similar legal trouble? 

CHUCK ROSENBERG: Right. Well, great question, Joy. First of all, trading a lot is not a crime. Trading more than any other senator is not a crime. But if he’s trading on inside information, meaning he has an advantage that you and I as members of the public don’t have, and he’s trading on that, that’s not just the problem, that’s a crime. And if you recall, there was a congressman from upstate New York, gentlemen Chris Collins, who is convicted of that, right? What we need to know is whether he had inside information and traded on it. You have to show he did it intentionally. And that’s always hard. But you know, I don’t think on a yard sign it would look very good to say questionable ethical behavior, but not indicted for it. [REID LAUGHS] That’s not really a campaign slogan. But that’s where we’re at right now and that is troubling. Is it criminal? Don’t know enough yet. 

REID: Well, I mean, by the way, they both have been saying — Loeffler and Perdue — part of their campaign thing is we never got indicted for any of this. I mean, so that is part of what they’re saying, believe it or not.

Former 2016 Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said attorney Lin Wood is trying to “blackmail” Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue in an interview with FOX News host Brian Kilmeade on Thursday. Lewandowski also responded to former 2020 Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale calling himself and Jared Kushner the real 2016 campaign managers.

KILMEADE: So, I want you to hear Lin Wood, who is in Georgia. Tell me if you think this is a good message. Cut 31. 
 
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
 
LIN WOOD, ATTORNEY: If Kelly Loeffler wants your vote, if David Perdue wants your vote, they’ve got to earn it. They’ve got to demand publicly, repeatedly, consistently. Brian Kemp, call a special session of the Georgia legislature and if they do not do it, if Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue do not do it, they have not earned your vote. Don’t you give it to them? Why would you go back and vote in another rigged election? For God sakes, fix it.
 
(END AUDIO CLIP)
 
KILMEADE: Thanks —
 
(CROSSTALK)
 
LEWANDOWSKI: Hey, Brian, let me — let me just say, Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue, who are United States Senators, have absolutely no authorization or jurisdiction to have the governor do anything when it comes to a special session of the Georgia state legislature. 
 
And for — for someone to put the criteria of making someone say something that you want them to say in order to vote for them is tantamount of blackmail. That’s crazy talk. 
 
The truth is, what’s at stake in the Georgia election cycle is our republic. And what I mean by that, Brian, is if the two Democrats win in that state, then the Democrats will control the House of Representatives, the United States Senate and the White House. That is a very dangerous combination.
 
And what we know the Democrat’s agenda is, is to potentially pack the Supreme Court, change the filibuster rules, roll back all of the great policies of this administration. Our last line of defense for the republic for the next two years is in the state of Georgia and in that special election. 
 
And if you think that making Senator Perdue and Senator Loeffler say something to Governor Kemp is the right model, you’re clearly out of touch with what is at stake in the big picture. 

Lewandowski on Parscale:

KILMEADE: Brad Parscale has reemerged. By the way, where’s Bill Stepien? 
 
LEWANDOWSKI: You know, I haven’t talked to Bill and part of that is on me, Brian, only because I got sick (ph) —
 
KILMEADE: No, but he hasn’t been public at all, Corey. I know you’ve been — you’ve had the virus. But, is he not for this?
 
LEWANDOWSKI: Yes, look, I — you know, I — Bill — as you know, Bill is not a forward-facing kind of guy. He’s a guy who operates behind the scenes. He’s a tactician. He is — he’s got his head down, he’s trying to, I’m sure, oversee some of this strategy. But he has never been a forward-facing guy. 
 
KILMEADE: Brad Parscale has emerged. Last time we saw him, he was getting arrested and he sat down with Martha. He used to — he ran 2016, he had a key role and he was running the 2020 re-elect when it all seemed to fall apart. Cut 23.
 
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
 
MARTHA MACCALLUM, FOX NEWS HOST: So, if that were the case, if he loses —
 
BRAD PARSCALE, SENIOR ADVISER FOR DATA OPERATIONS FOR TRUMP CAMPAIGN: Yes.
 
MACCALLUM: — do you believe he should run in 2024?
 
PARSCALE: I don’t know if it’s (ph) (inaudible) what he should do, but I wish he would. I think there’s still a lot of story to be told. Do I hope he makes a few little tweaks? Yes. And if he wants to call me and I’ll tell him what I think those tweaks are. If he doesn’t want to call me, I wish him the best of luck. I think he’s the best thing for this country and I’ll be MAGA for life.
 
(END AUDIO CLIP)
 
KILMEADE: And he also went on to say this, Corey, about what the president did wrong.
 
(BEGIN AUDIO CLIP)
 
PARSCALE: I think with the decision on COVID to go for opening the economy versus public empathy, we had a difference on this. I thought we should have public empathy. I think people were scared. I walked around this people — and walk — watched people walk around me. 
 
Not like two years ago and they just don’t want to walk next to me because I’m Brad Parscale, but walk around me because I got a mask on now, and they just don’t want to get — catch COVID. I can see how waitresses stand a little farther from the table. People are scared. And I think — I think if he would’ve been publicly empathetic, he would’ve won by a landslide. I think he could’ve leaned into it instead of run away from it.
 
 (END AUDIO CLIP)
 
KILMEADE: What are your thoughts about that?
 
LEWANDOWSKI: Well, look, there’s a lot of people who have revisionist history of what took place in 2016, Brian. Just so we’re crystal clear, Brad Parscale was not the campaign manager in 2016, regardless of what he said. I served as the campaign manager and Kellyanne Conway. Those are the only two people who ever had that title in the 2016 campaign and Paul Manafort was the campaign chairman.
 
Brad’s role was to work on the digital side and I don’t think Brad even met Donald Trump until sometime in April or May of 2016 after the campaign had been up and running for a year. So this notion that Brad was the campaign manager in 2016, I mean, I’m going to dissuade the American people from that because that’s not the truth. And I understand that when you get fired and your life kind of falls apart, you want to be retrospective and blame other people for what happens.
 
Hey, Brian, look, I’ve been in that spot and a lot of people who have worked for Trump have been in that spot of being fired. It’s how you handle it. And you know what, I never went out and bashed other people who I’ve worked with on the campaign, never claimed credit for things I didn’t do. And to say that if your plan was followed, he would’ve won or whatever, that’s all-revisionist history. It’s hard to do.
 
But what we do know was this was a campaign that had raised and spent, what, $1.4 billion, had thousands of people on payroll. It basically became the Hillary Clinton campaign from 2016. It was just this giant conglomerate of individuals. It wasn’t a meritocracy, it wasn’t nimble, and it had a very different result in 2016 because in 2016, with probably 200 people and a fraction of the spending of Hillary Clinton, Donald Trump was successful.
 
KILMEADE: Very diplomatic of you, Corey, but just for the record, I didn’t say he was campaign manager. I said played a key role. That’s all I said. Yes, but he —
 
(CROSSTALK)
 
LEWANDOWSKI: No, but I think he — I think he actually, in the interview, and I know it wasn’t that cut, but I think he actually said to Martha for the first time, I’m now going to tell you, I actually served as the campaign manager and Martha pushed back and said well, what about Kellyanne Conway? 
 
And Brad’s response, and I’m paraphrasing, was well, she was campaign manager in name only. So I know it wasn’t that direct cut, but I believe that that was part of the interview that he did.
 
KILMEADE: Yes, that is, and Eric’s (ph) nodding along, absolutely. Corey, I’m glad you’re feeling better. Hope to see you soon.
 
LEWANDOWSKI: You bet. I’m sure you will. Thanks, Brian.
 
KILMEADE: You got it. Corey Lewandowski.