Appearing as a guest on Thursday's New Day on CNN, New York Times columnist Tom Friedman lambasted Republicans for not pushing the Trump administration on Russia more aggressively, calling it "one of the most shameful things that I have seen in almost 30 years of being in Washington, D.C."
The liberal columnist went on to make his latest over the top invocation of the 9/11 attacks and the attack on Pearl Harbor as he worried that Russia disrupted American democracy, making the worn-out misleading claim that Russia "hacked our elections," even though it was actually the Democratic National Committee that was targeted.
At 6:37 a.m. Eastern, during a discussion of revelations that Attorney General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador during the presidential campaign season, co-host Alisyn Camerota posed:
Attorney General Sessions is saying that he thought the questions basically were about whether or not he met as a Trump surrogate during the campaign about campaign business, if they discussed anything with the Russian ambassador about the campaign, and that he met with him as a Senator on the Armed Services Committee about that. But why do you think aren't more Republicans up in arms about this?
Friedman hyped the magnitude of the situation as he began:
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Ali, I think it's one of the most shameful things that I have seen in almost 30 years of being in Washington, D.C. I believe the fact that our three leading intelligence agencies -- the NSA, CIA and FBI -- have all publicly concluded that Russia intervened in our election. Did it make Donald Trump President decisively? No one can say that. I accept Donald Trump as the legal, legitimate President. Many things went into his victory.
The liberal columnist then brought up the 9/11 attacks and Pearl Harbor as he continued:
But the fact that our three intelligence agencies have concluded this and the Republican party -- the party of patriotism, the party that made a central fact of its campaign the fact that Hillary Clinton had a private server that might -- might, but without any evidence, might have been hacked, you know, by the Russians. The fact that we know Russia hacked our elections, this -- look, on 9/11, we lost 3,000 of our brothers and sisters. At Pearl Harbor, we lost thousands of people. These were huge events.
Friedman has a history of melodramatically invoking the 9/11 attacks while trying to hype the severity of issues he is complaining about. A couple of weeks ago, he referred to Trump telling "lies" that were "Pearl Harbor" and "9/11-scale." And in November, he called Trump's election a "moral 9/11."
He then added:
I don't compare it in terms of lives lost, but in terms of import, this was a direct assault on the very thing that makes us unique as a nation -- the fact that we rotate power legally, freely, okay, and we don't challenge that. And the fact that the Russians attacked this -- that for less than the price of Mig 29 -- for less than the price of a Mig 29, Vladimir Putin intervened in our election and helped to create a -- to elect a chaos candidate, which is exactly what Putin wants because he is out to destroy the West.
Friedman again used the words "one of the most shameful" as he concluded his rant:
The fact that the Republican party is sitting there on its hands, not responding to this, looking the other way, and looking for excuses for it, is is one of the most shameful national security cases I have ever seen in Washington, D.C.
