Say What is the segment of Liberty Nation Radio where we unveil some of the most wacky, astonishing and damnable things uttered by politicians and the chattering class. Here is the latest episode:
Tim Donner: We now know why Rudy Giuliani was brought on board by president Trump – to be the public face, the spokesman for the president’s legal team. And he certainly made his presence felt this week, particularly on Fox News, where he said, Mueller’s got nothing on the president, but implied that Trump will agree to an interview with special counsel Robert Mueller for two or two and a half hours.
Rudy Giuliani: That’s the amount of times that we would allow, only because that’s what Clinton got and got only two and a half hours. And he fought with them over discovery. We’ve given them 1.2 million documents. Didn’t fight with them over it. Could have. We could have raised presidential privilege. Other privileges. We gave them a complete picture of what’s going on. They should be able to do this, if they have a case, in two and a half hours. Or they want to dispose it.
Everybody forgets the basis of the case is that Sessions should step in and close it. This started as collusion with the Russians. Now they go to obstruction of justice, collusion among the players. What they’re really trying to do is trap him into perjury. And we’re not suckers.
Tim Donner: We’re not suckers. It’s that kind of sentiment that shows you why the hardnosed combative former mayor of New York was brought on board, to shake things up for better or worse.
Meanwhile, the man who has been out in front in providing objective legal analysis on the Mueller probe is the liberal law professor Alan Dershowitz. On CNN this week, Dershowitz was clear about where he thinks Mueller is headed with Trump.
Alan Dershowitz: I think where we’re going is to a subpoena. I think right now, the president’s legal team should have no interest in answering these enormously broad questions voluntarily. They’ll get the same broad questions, artfully asked, at a grand jury. But at least they’ll be able to challenge, A, the entire process of subpoenaing the president. They’ll lose on that. I think they will win on some areas of questioning. For example, “Why did you fire? What was your motive? What was your reasoning?” I don’t think you can question presidential acts that are covered by article two.
Anderson Cooper: You can’t get to intent?
Alan Dershowitz: I don’t think you can. Or motive. But I think what you can get to is what the president’s most vulnerable on. And that is business dealings before he became president. The irony is those questions that he has the best legal right to prevent are not the most important questions, whereas the ones he has no legal right to prevent are the most damaging questions.
Tim Donner: There’s a whole lot of real world consequences related to this investigation that go unreported. Lives that have been damaged or ruined. Case in point, former Trump advisor Michael Caputo, who said on CNN this week that defending himself against the Mueller investigators has cost him $125,000 and he blames it all on the grandstanding former FBI director James Comey, who is still out on his book tour.
Michael Caputo: I used to really respect James Comey. And 88% of this book is good. You know. But the last two chapters, to me, are a shame, and a pox on the entire FBI. The idea that this guy can go out and leak documents and do things to make sure a special counsel is put in place that ends up costing my family $125,000, I’m not fine with that.
Tim Donner: Nor is Michael Flynn, whose life has been essentially ruined by this investigation, even though he committed no crimes beyond making a false statement to Mueller’s investigators. And who knows how many others will end up as roadkill by the time Robert Mueller is finished. You wonder when the laws regarding special counsels and the latitude they’re given to broaden their investigations almost infinitely will mercifully be overturned. As the Bill Clinton people will also tell you after the White Water investigation that became the Monica Lewinsky investigation, there’s got to be a better way than setting a special counsel loose to do anything he wants.
Now if you wanted anymore evidence of just how much the establishment media detests Donald Trump, we got it. At the White House correspondence dinner, which Trump refused to attend for a second straight year, the comedian chosen by the writers Michelle Wolf unleashed a vicious cutdown of the president.
Michelle Wolf: Good evening. Here we are. The White House correspondence dinner. Like a porn star says when she’s about to have sex with Trump, “Let’s get this over with.” Trump is racist though. He’s loves white nationalists. Which is a weird term for a Nazi. Calling a Nazi a white nationalist is like calling a pedophile a kid friend.
Tim Donner: Of course, the Trump haters in the media like Jake Tapper appearing on the Late Night Show of Trump hater extraordinaire, the cackling Jimmy Kimmel, took the opportunity to lash out at those who thought the comedians remarks, including several particularly viscous ones about White House press secretary Sarah Sanders were just fine.
Jake Tapper: If the Trump White House and their allies in the media want to have this conversation about decency, I welcome them to the table to talk about it. But there’s a bunch of stuff that they need to get caught up on before we get to a comedian at the White House dinner. We want to talk about whether or not it’s appropriate to say that John McCain isn’t a war hero because he was captured. And whether or not it’s okay to make fun of people with disabilities. Or talking about women’s appearances in inappropriate ways. There’s a back-up of material, if the Trump people want to talk about it.
Tim Donner: Hahaha. Remember the old days when Late Night Comedy used to actually be funny? Anyway, we close our Say What segment with a couple of truly wacky statements from the two competitors in the 2016 presidential election. First Hillary Clinton, who had people rolling on the floor laughing when she said in response to a question in one of those think tank events that she might have lost the election in part because she admitted that she’s a capitalist, even though she’s not.
Moderator: You may be the only presidential candidate since World War II that actually had to stand up and say, “I am a capitalist.” And you did. Did it hurt you?
Hillary Clinton: Probably. I mean, you know, it’s hard to know. But if you’re in the Iowa caucuses and 41% of Democrats are socialist or self-described socialists, and I’m asked, “Are you a capitalist?”, and I say, “Yes”, but with appropriate regulation and appropriate accountability, that probably gets lost and, “Oh my gosh. She’s a capitalist.”
Tim Donner: Well, you can add that to the list of excuses for losing, which already numbers about a couple dozen on Hillary’s ongoing excuse tour. But that was nothing compared to president Trump’s wacky idea of adding a sixth branch of the military. Now there’s the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, Coast Guard, and now …
Donald Trump: The Space Force. Does that make sense? The Space Force general. You probably haven’t even heard that. I’m just telling you now. This is perhaps, because we’re getting very big in space, both militarily and for other reasons. And we are seriously thinking of the Space Force.
Tim Donner: There’s so many possible jokes you could make from that, but it would take too long. But that, my friends, was quintessential Donald Trump.