Whenever someone from the liberal media footnotes in a Trump-Russia story that there’s no evidence that votes were changed, remember segments like this one from Tuesday’s Hardball that showed why, deep down, they’re still convinced that Russians were why Hillary Clinton lost the election.
During the Hardball Roundtable block on MSNBC, Washington Post reporter Eugene Scott dumped his supposed objectivity to join with former Clinton campaign official Adrienne Elrod in boisterously rejecting GOP strategist John Brabender, who argued that Russian hacking and social media trolls didn’t change one vote.
Host Chris Matthews tried to throw down with Brabender, but he offered nothing of substance besides the general notion that the evidence could change depending on the Mueller probe’s findings.
“No one's going to convince me a billion dollar was spent on this campaigns and with some — and with some memes they changed the outcome,” Brabender argued as Matthews shouted at him.
Brabender was eventually able to continue after more squabbling: “Look, here’s what the argument has been, what Russia has done to influence the election the argument is to release e-mails where Hillary Clinton was trying to scam the election from Bernie Sanders. That's what we're using as what the Russians successfully did?”
Elrod shouted that “[t]here was a lot more than just that” and Scott also joined in with the asinine connotation that Russian-backed social media trolls swung the election by depressing turnout:
EUGENE SCOTT: Yeah. There’s a lot more than —
BRABENDER: Okay, so —
SCOTT: — than what’s being said about.
BRABENDER: Okay, so —
SCOTT: One of the things that has been said is that through the factories — the troll factories, fake accounts have been put out that have — that were aimed at increasing, I'm sorry, decreasing turnout amongst particular demographics and that we do have data that some demographics did not vote especially in some of those swings states.
BRABENDER: Yeah, but you’re combining those two. So, what you're basically saying, despite a billion dollars worth of advertising, despite all the network coverage and all the debates, some Russians somewhere put a meme on Facebook and —
SCOTT: Not a meme. Lots of trolls —
BRABENDER: — okay, that’s — that’s —
SCOTT: — lots of memes, lots of tweets —
BRABENDER: — that’s insulting.
ELROD: No.
SCOTT: — lots of fake news articles.
Brabender reiterated just how “insulting” that is “to voters” and halfheartedly wondered allowed how much Russian trolls spent on Facebook compared to the billions spent in the 2016 election. Nonetheless, Elrod and Scott kept pushing with the former emphatically stating that they “absolutely impacted the election” while Scott lashed out: “Did you see the memes? Did you see them?”
“The Democrats are right now like this sort of group where they need a drug to get — how did we lose this election and Russia — Russia is that drug. Russia is that drug,” Brabender responded.
To see the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on February 27, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Hardball
February 27, 2018
7:43 p.m. EasternCHRIS MATTHEWS: Let me ask you, there's two issues. There’s one is the Democrats and the special counsel and everybody else have the enough on Trump to begin to impeach him. That’s one issue of great interest to many of our viewers. The other is, what is the question of Russia's involvement clearly established in the 2016 election? Whatever effect it had? Did it turn it against Hillary? Did it just make a marginal effect? Whatever it was, it was there. The American people know it was there and most people believe it's coming back at us in '18. How is that going to affect this administration's history in the books? Adrienne?
ADRIENNE ELROD: Well, I think it's going to down —
MATTHEWS: That they’re not fighting the Russians.
ELROD: Yeah, I think it’s going to affect — very negatively affect President Trump's history. I mean, look, it is infuriating as an American that our President does not seem to care about this, despite collusion or not, the fact that he doesn't seem to care about this, the fact that he's had two major intelligence officials testify in the last two weeks he has not directed them to do anything about this, so I think it's going to have a dismal impact on this.
MATTHEWS: What do you make of that? Christopher Wray, the FBI Director, the NSA, Mike Rogers all of them saying he's never told me to do anything about the Russians.
JOHN BRABENDER: Well, the bigger problem is we’re taking —
MATTHEWS: Isn't that a problem?
BRABENDER: — no. Here's the bigger problem. We're taking the whole Russian thing and we’re throwing it into one category when there’s three. Number one, did they interfere? Yes. Everybody should agree.
MATTHEWS: He won't say that.
BRABENDER: Everybody should say that. Now, he would say —
MATTHEWS: He said it was a 400-pound guy lying in a bed somewhere.
BRABENDER: Number two, was there collusion and the President's right. So far, there’s been absolutely no proof that there was collusion. Number three, did it impact the election? And I would tell you as an election expert who's done this for 30 years, it did not have an impact on the election. So, I do believe my advice to —
MATTHEWS: You mean it didn't have an impact on who won.
BRABENDER: Absolutely.
MATTHEWS: Who won? Okay.
BRABENDER: Okay. My advice to the President —
MATTHEWS: We now know they accessed — they penetrated seven states for sure into their election process.
BRABENDER: Yeah. They tried to. We don't know that they successfully did.
MATTHEWS: Well, they caked the joint. They penetrated them.
BRABENDER: They caked the joint. That’s different.
MATTHEWS: Okay.
BRABENDER: We don’t know one vote was changed
MATTHEWS: They could have done it [INAUDIBLE]
BRABENDER: No one's going to convince me a billion dollar was spent on this campaigns —
MATTHEWS: Okay, and by the way, I wanna — before you go past —
BRABENDER: — and with some — and with some memes they changed the outcome.
MATTHEWS: — before you go past the crown jewels here. There are three people I could think of: Papadopoulos, Flynn, and now Rick Gates who have all been basically involved in plea bargains to give stuff to Trump on Trump to Mueller. What do you think that is? It has nothing to do with Russia?
BRABENDER: I don't think that has anything to do —
MATTHEWS: You’re saying there’s nothing there.
BRABENDER: — with Russia and the campaign, absolutely. No, I don't. First of all, tell me what Russia could have done.
MATTHEWS: That's what he's investigating.
BRABENDER: Look, here’s what the argument has been, what Russia has done to influence the election the argument is to release e-mails where Hillary Clinton was trying to scam the election from Bernie Sanders. That's what we're using as what the Russians successfully did?
ELROD: There were a lot more than that. I mean, there was a lot more than just that.
EUGENE SCOTT: Yeah. There’s a lot more than —
BRABENDER: Okay, so —
SCOTT: — than what’s being said about.
BRABENDER: Okay, so —
SCOTT: One of the things that has been said is that through the factories — the troll factories, fake accounts have been put out that have — that were aimed at increasing, I'm sorry, decreasing turnout amongst particular demographics and that we do have data that some demographics did not vote especially in some of those swings states.
BRABENDER: Yeah, but you’re combining those two. So, what you're basically saying, despite a billion dollars worth of advertising, despite all the network coverage and all the debates, some Russians somewhere put a meme on Facebook and —
SCOTT: Not a meme. Lots of trolls —
BRABENDER: --- okay, that’s — that’s —
SCOTT: — lots of memes, lots of tweets —
BRABENDER: — that’s insulting.
ELROD: No.
SCOTT: — lots of fake news articles.
BRABENDER: And that's insulting to voters.
ELROD: There’s a lot more than that.
BRABENDER: How much did they spend? And how much did they spend on Facebook? How much did they spend.
ELROD: We don’t know. That's what we're trying to figure out.
SCOTT: That’s where the investigation is going.
BRABENDER: We know — we know it was minimal.
ELROD: It absolutely impacted the election.
SCOTT: It’s still ongoing.
BRABENDER: Memes and posts on Facebook by some Russians influenced the election? that's insulting to voters.
SCOTT: Did you see the memes? Did you see them?
ELROD: [INAUDIBLE]
MATTHEWS: If the Republicans had lost the presidential election, would you be as unconcerned about the degree to which they interfered?
BRABENDER: Here's the thing.
ELROD: Yeah.
MATTHEWS: You're saying this is a matter of degree to which they influenced the election?
BRABENDER: The Democrats are right now like this sort of group where they need a drug to get — how did we lose this election and Russia —
MATTHEWS: That’s the Trump —
BRABENDER: — Russia is that drug.
MATTHEWS: — that is the Trump argument. That's the Trump argument.
BRABENDER: Russia is that drug.
MATTHEWS: I don't believe it.
