Buckle up, everyone. On Thursday’s Deadline: White House, the MSNBC show descended into chaos as liberal Republicans Steve Schmidt and Nicolle Wallace lost their minds in shouting down former Vice President Pence aide Marc Lotter when he warned against speculation into the Mueller probe and brought up the dossier and Uranium One stories.
Among other insults, Lotter was accused of spreading “propaganda” and participating in “an absolute, premeditated misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the American people” with the Clinton-Russian uranium deal and Fusion GPS dossier stories promulgated by Fox News.
The first fight took place over the Mueller probe when Wallace pressed Lotter about George Papadopoulos and what she already decided was evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian (even though she hasn’t seen it.).
Lotter stated that “we don't know what Bob Mueller knows” and, even with Monday’s indictments, “there has been no evidence of any kind of collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia.”
Immediately, Wallace got angry and defensive, acting as though she’s being fed information by Mueller and sharing it on background and off the record with viewers:
WALLACE: Why do you keep saying that? How do you know?
LOTTER: Has there been any evidence? I mean, we’re supposed to be dealing in [INAUDIBLE] here. Facts, not speculation.
This didn’t sit well with the failed McCain campaign aide. In response, Wallace wanted to know if Lotter trusted Mueller to do his job and when Lotter stated that he trusted the legal “process to play out,” that was deemed unacceptable:
WALLACE: Bob Mueller is invest — but why are you so eager to get ahead of Bob. Do you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: I'm not going to make a judgment on Bob Mueller. The former FBI director is —
WALLACE: You don’t know if you can trust Bob Mueller? He’s the former FBI director after 9/11. He prevented — are you —
LOTTER: He will make his determination.
WALLACE: — yes or no. Do you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: I would trust the process to play out the way it's meant to be played out. Right now, we have no —
WALLACE: Why can't you say you trust a former FBI director who worked for Republicans and Democrats who kept this country safe after the worst terror attacks on our soil?
LOTTER: It’s not my —
WALLACE: You can't say you trust Bob Mueller?
LOTTER: It’s not my job to come here and say who I trust and don’t trust.
WALLACE: You can't say that? I hope they're paying you a lot of money.
Yeesh. If anyone wants to lecture a guest about being a sellout, Wallace is one of the last people in the news media to be making that claim. Not to be left out, fellow McCain campaign flack and MSNBC liberal GOPer Schmidt jumped in.
Schmidt argued that it’s already a done deal that the Trump campaign and Russia colluded during the election. This, of course, was without any direct evidence. Schmidt cited the indictment of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, but Lotter correctly shot back that Manafort’s charges have nothing to do with the campaign.
Schmidt continued:
Donald Trump Jr. met at the invitation of Russian nationals in an e-mail that was titled, you know, essentially from the Russian government to get dirt on the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. And from the Vice President...in every instance, from the Vice President to the Attorney General to the press secretary, the press secretaries, every single person around this administration, when asked a direct question about contacts with the Russians, on this issue, has lied about it. 100% of the time and the lie has unraveled.
The temper tantrum continued when Schmidt argued against discussion of Uranium One and the Trump dossier because it’s proof Lotter is “engaged and involved in here is an absolute, premeditated misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the American people.”
“This whole charge of collusion with regard to the Democrats is complete and total fantasyland nonsense talk that is propagated on Fox News, propagated in the conservative media and you're not — you’re not being honest about it in the representations that you're making,” Schmidt bewailed.
Hmm. It’s like Schmidt doesn’t think people can care about more than one thing at once, all taking the Mueller probe, the Trump dossier, and Uranium one stories seriously.
Lotter started responding to Schmidt’s unhinged conniption, but he only made it so far before Wallace and Schmidt went bananas:
LOTTER: Steve, here are the facts that we know that started with The Washington Post. I think you've probably heard of them. Not Fox News. It started with the Clinton campaign paying hundreds of thousands of dollars if not millions of dollars to Fusion GPS which went out and hired a foreign operative who Brian Fallon, Hillary Clinton's former spokesperson says, I would have gone out and helped him if I could have. They went on and then worked with Kremlin-tied connections to provide misinformation about then candidate, later President-elect of the United States and to make matters worse, the Hillary Clinton campaign, through their operatives, peddled this trash —
WALLACE: Marc, I will —
LOTTER: — to the American people starting last summer —
SCHMIDT: Nonsense!
LOTTER: — through the fall.
SCHMIDT: Just nonsense!
WALLACE: Marc, hey, hey —
SCHMIDT: Nonsense!
What’s noteworthy here is Schmidt and Wallace did nothing to refute Lotter except engage in name-calling and shouting. Such behavior can win some people over, but not everyone.
For example, Wallace told Lotter that she “will call some friends at Fox and try to get you a booking but we’re not going to peddle” his supposed garbage. She then demanded that he accept the premise that collusion occurred and, when Lotter, didn’t take the bait, she again dove into the gutter:
WALLACE: You are being madly defensive. You are about to jump through the camera and punch Steve Schmidt in the neck.
LOTTER: Well, when I get called — when I get called being untrustworthy, I’ll fight back.
ALLACE: Why can't you say it's possible collusion took place? It's probably going to end up that they tried and were incompetent colluders. But what we’re — if it's not a crime, why are you guys — why is it such a raw nerve for you guys?
Lotter countered with what he referred to as a double standard between the Mueller probe and what the Clinton campaign and DNC did on the Trump dossier. Wallace flashed pure pettiness by telling him that she would “send an e-mail over friends at Fox and you can peddle your propaganda there.”
She could have stopped when she replied that her show has covered Uranium One in the past, but such civility was nowhere to be found on the set of this MSNBC show.
Here’s the relevant transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on November 2:
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
November 2, 2017
4:29 p.m. Eastern
STEVE SCHMIDT: Well, I want to address something very directly that Marc said that there's no evidence of collusion. Of course, that's not true. The chairman of the campaign, now under indictment, Paul Manafort.
MARC LOTTER: For nothing that had do to with —
SCHMIDT: Donald Trump — Donald Trump Jr. and Jared Kushner
LOTTER: That was back in — that was history.
SCHMIDT: — don't interrupt me. I'm talking.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Marc, Marc, let Steve —
SCHMIDT: Donald Trump Jr. met at the invitation of Russian nationals in an e-mail that was titled, you know, essentially from the Russian government to get dirt on the Democratic nominee for president of the United States. And from the Vice President —
LOTTER: And Hillary Clinton paid —
WALLACE: Hang on. Hang on, Mark. We'll let you respond. We'll let you respond.
SCHMIDT: — in every instance, from the Vice President to the Attorney General to the press secretary, the press secretaries, every single person around this administration, when asked a direct question about contacts with the Russians, on this issue, has lied about it. 100% of the time and the lie has unraveled. And with regard to the uranium deal in the dossier, I think that what you’re engaged and involved in here is an absolute, premeditated misinformation campaign designed to spin and mislead the American people. This whole charge of collusion with regard to the Democrats is complete and total fantasyland nonsense talk that is propagated on Fox News, propagated in the conservative media —
LOTTER: It started in The Washington Post.
SCHMIDT: — and you're not — you’re not being honest about it in the representations that you're making.
(....)
WALLACE: I will call some friends at Fox and try to get you a booking but we’re not going to peddle — that's not true and all we’re asking — listen. We appreciate that you come here and speak on behalf of Donald Trump, but why can't you say that we don't know if — I mean, we know there was attempted collusion and, if it's not a crime, why are you so defensive about it?
LOTTER: I’m not being defensive. You are accusing me of lying.
WALLACE: You are being madly defensive. You are about to jump through the camera and punch Steve Schmidt in the neck.
LOTTER: Well, when I get called — when I get called being untrustworthy, I’ll fight back.
WALLACE: Why can't you say it's possible collusion took place? It's probably going to end up that they tried and were incompetent colluders. But what we’re — if it's not a crime, why are you guys — why is it such a raw nerve for you guys?
LOTTER: Well, here’s the question. Here's the double standard. So you talk about these issues here which you say amount to collusion, but the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee go out and pay for this and peddle it and that's just opposition research.
WALLACE: Well, you don't know that we haven't covered that story. Ken Dilanian is with us and we have covered Uranium One.
LOTTER: It’s considered opposition research and brushed away.
WALLACE: I'll send an e-mail over friends at Fox and you can peddle your propaganda there.
