UPDATE, 4:25 p.m. Eastern: Apparently, Tara Setmayer wants us all to watch our rhetoric and call out the President while she’s still allowed to talk about Fox News rhetorically making the President masturbate. In a tweet reacting to this article, Setmayer wrote that she “stand[s] by everything I said in my podcast”:
What a classy individual. Whether it’s folks like Tara Setmayer, Max Boot, David Jolly, Tom Nichols, Jennifer Rubin, Charlie Sykes, Rick Wilson, or any other number of ardent Never Trumpers, not only is supporting diehard liberals and progressives and giving them the power to carry out their far-left policies the proper way to restore conservatism, it’s also appropriate to engage in lewd talk and curse on the air.
Of course, only Trumpers are the ones who have put America into the gutter.
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CNN political commentator and pro-Russian Congressman Dana Rohrbacher aide Tara Setmayer has been a diehard Never Trump while supposed still claiming to be a conservative, Republican, or something along those lines. But like almost cable news Republicans, she’s lurched leftward.
On her October 30 podcast, she hypocritical lectured listeners that “words matter” and “we have to be better” while bashing Fox News for being a network that “jerks the President off every single day” and is filled with “political masturbation.” She also suggested that anyone who supports the President or any of his policies might as well support murderous drug dealers.
The podcast was taped during the liberal media-wide campaign to blame the mail bombs and Pittsburgh synagogue shooting on anyone and everyone who wasn’t a left-of-center, so Setmayer first lashed out just past the 15-minute mark, condemning the President’s insistence that the media have been to blame for the state of discourse (which polling suggested he’s right).
“I mean, with words that have come out of his mouth and what he said at rallies and the environment he’s fomented and what these — these evil people have decided to now carry out into action,” Setmayer opined, blaming what “comes right out of the President’s mouth and on Fox freaking News all damn day” for the anti-Semitic synagogue shooter.
Showing a visceral hatred for Trump supporters, she lashed out (click “expand”):
Just another point for people who are Trump supporters. I don’t think you probably listen to me, but if you do, yes, the white nationalist, anti-Semite who killed those people in Pittsburgh, said that he didn’t like Trump. Yeah, well, he didn’t like Trump because Trump wasn’t Nazi enough, okay. He wasn’t anti-Semitic enough, just like I read from that article in The Washington Post. They said they think that he’s got an issue with Jews. Yeah, well, his daughter and son-in-law are Jewish, but he aligns with us on certain issues and so, okay. So, I don’t want to hear it. Don’t tell me that the caravan talk and what Trump has done and what he keeps repeating, making shit up about who’s in the caravan, who isn’t, without proof, sending our troops down there just for window-dressing.
Talk about wanting an expanded tent! So uniting!
She also condemned “so many people” who “are just not acknowledging where Trump has some influence on this” and won’t accept how “his tone and repeated attacked on the media and repeated attacks on his political opponents” led to the mail bombings. Going back to the media, she dismissed those concerns about the media, saying she’s “so sick of that.”
As if she had Oliver Darcy or Brian Stelter write her a script, she went on an extended bend about the gloriousness of the movie The Post and the Supreme Court case concerning the Pentagon Papers. She noted the Nixon-Trump connections with their disdain for the media and how Roger Stone was close with both, but again, Setmayer should be careful about casting stones about someone as pro-Putin as Stone.
After reading a passage from Justice Hugo Black’s opinion about the genuine role of the press, Setmayer stated that she went on that bend to reemphasize the “right of the free press” because “[i]t’s not to be a lapdog to the President of the United States.”
She then dropped the masturbation line about Fox News and ruled that “mainstream media does not” lie or make things up (click “expand”):
It’s not to make the President, you know, feel good about himself like Fox News does, okay. Fox News jerks the President off every single day. It is political masturbation on that channel. That’s right. I said it. That’s what that is. That’s not the role of a free press. It’s supposed to hold people accountable. We do not go out there and deliberately lie. That’s not what we do. That’s not what responsible journalists do. Do we get it wrong sometimes? Yes. Are we the enemy of the people? No. Are we generating fake news on purpose? No. Some right-wing sites are, some left-wing sites are, the fringes do that. Mainstream media does not. You can argue if there’s an agenda. Maybe, you know, a point of view which you tell the stories. But we are not, under any circumstances, the enemy of the people of this country and shame on the President of the United States for continuing to repeat that. Because when you do that, then wack jobs like this guy in Florida riding around in a van with all these sick pictures and targets on political opponents of the President with signs that says [sic] “CNN Sucks” and everything else, decided to take action into their own hands. So, I don’t want to hear it.
Just to name two examples, Dan Rather and Brian Williams were not available for comment
Moments after her Fox News/masturbation comments, Setmayer’s twice insisted that “words matter,” but added the qualifier (and thus to lessen the importance of her own tone) that it’s “especially when they’re coming out of the mouth of the President of the United States with the bully pulpit.”
Setmayer followed up with her suggestion that people who supported the tax cut plan and conservative Supreme Court justices were akin to folks who support drug dealers as long as they give back in the same communities they murder people in (click “expand):
You know, my husband and I were talking about some of this before. We were talking people we’ve known about for a really long time and now, like when you hear them rationalizing Trump’s behavior it makes both of us kind of pause because, at some point, you have to decide if the integrity of this country is less important than your tax cuts or your Supreme Court? Just the very selfish things you want now. What are we doing to ourselves? Who are we as a people that we are rationalizing this? So you rationalize what Trump does. You make excuses for him. “Well, I don’t like what he says or how he says it, but look at what he does.” Really? Well, where do you draw the line with that? Where do you draw the line with that? Drug dealers are horrible people. They’re killing thousands of people, but guess what? There are some drug dealers that they care about folks in their community. They pay the rents for people. They buy people turkeys at Thanksgiving. They give, you know, buy sneakers for kids in the neighborhood. Well, so what? So what if they kill all kinds of people with their poison? They’re nice. They’re good to our neighborhood. What kind of rationalization is that? It’s about, like where we are with Trump. So what kind of people are these that continue to rationalize this? Tells you something about their character and people now, they’ve swung the other way.
She mocked those who were upset with Obama’s divisive remarks toward Christians and conservatives for having “internalized it” and allowed Trump to speak to them like he’s “a cult leader” and would approve of their children behaving as crudely as Trump has in his life.
Setmayer again hypocritically declared: “And we have to be better. We have to do better.” While invoking Ida B. Wells, Setmayer took yet another shot at Fox News (click “expand”):
[S]he famously said, “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” That’s what I try to do everyday. That’s what my colleagues in the media try to do and no bout of terrorism, intimidation, coming whether it was coming from domestic terrorism — terrorists or whether it was coming from the podium in the Oval Office in the White House in the press room in the White House or anywhere else or Fox News or Breitbart or anywhere else. No amount of intimidation will stop me, I can speak for myself at least from turning the truth of light upon them. That’s why we do what we do and that’s why I do what I do.
To see the relevant transcript from October 30's Honesty Speaking with Tara Setmayer, click “expand.”
Honesty Speaking with Tara Setmayer
October 30, 2018
15:19 markTARA SETMAYER: He’s doubled and tripled down on blaming the media, tweeting that we are the enemy of the people. That is just so inappropriate and, you know, he won’t take any responsibility. None. That there’s — claiming there’s no correlation between what’s happened with him, I mean, with words that have come out of his mouth and what he said at rallies and the environment he’s fomented and what these — these evil people have decided to now carry out into action. I want to bring something up. So, like I said, this Robert Bauers, this perpetrator in the synagogue massacre, he’s a self-proclaimed Nazi, hates Jews and he — he said that the caravan that was, you know, one of the things and I’m gonna — you know, he yelled out “I’m going to kill Jews and he was shooting, according to reports, he also talked about the caravan, about people coming in and invading the country and killing his people. Where do you think he got that language from? That comes right out of the President’s mouth and on Fox freaking News all damn day, especially at night on the opinion shows. Where is their responsibility? Don’t sit here and tell me that Donald Trump and his presidency and his camp back to his candidacy have not emboldened these people? Exhibit A: Back in July, there was an article in The Washington Post. It was a long form article that I was horrified by when I read it. It was July 28, 2018: “How white supremacists split a quiet Rust Belt town in Pennsylvania.”
(....)
23:57 mark
SETMAYER: Just another point for people who are Trump supporters. I don’t think you probably listen to me, but if you do, yes, the white nationalist, anti-Semite who killed those people in Pittsburgh, said that he didn’t like Trump. Yeah, well, he didn’t like Trump because Trump wasn’t Nazi enough, okay. He wasn’t anti-Semitic enough, just like I read from that article in The Washington Post. They said they think that he’s got an issue with Jews. Yeah, well, his daughter and son-in-law are Jewish, but he aligns with us on certain issues and so, okay. So, I don’t want to hear it. Don’t tell me that the caravan talk and what Trump has done and what he keeps repeating, making shit up about who’s in the caravan, who isn’t, without proof, sending our troops down there just for window-dressing. What are 5,000 more troops going to do? They’re not there — they cannot enforce, like, domestic law. They’re just going to be there in an advisory capacity. It’s all window-dressing, folks. It’s all window-dressing. We already sent the National Guard. So, that’s not the answer either. Is it a deterrent? I mean, like I said, that’s another discussion.
(....)
27:01 mark
SETMAYER: But the part that bothered me the most about this is that so many people are just not acknowledging where Trump has some influence on this. Did he send the bombs? Did he make the guy send the bombs? No he didn’t. Has his tone and repeated attacked on the media and repeated attacks on his political opponents set a — set a tone? Yeah, it has and he was still attacking people. I’m not a fan of Maxine Waters for a number of reasons, but I will damn sure defend against trying to kill her. I’m not a fan of President Obama. I can’t stand the Clintons. We shouldn’t be sending mail bombs intending to assassinate them and then turn around and insult the same people who were just targeted, which is what Trump did at his rallies, still calling her “Low IQ Maxine.” Yes, Maxine Waters said some things about confront people where they are in restaurants. I don’t agree with that. I don’t — two wrongs don’t make a right, though. We’re not supposed to become what we despise ever, yet there’s this rationalization by Trump supporters. “Well, it’s the media’s fault.” I’m so sick of that.
You know, I watched the movie The Post and it — I’ve seen it like three times now. I saw it in the movies and then I saw it on a plane coming back from California actually — or going to California last week. I just happened to watch it again, so I appreciate the banter plus it’s historic. You know, The Post movie about the Pentagon Papers and what happened in the 1970s when the study — the RAND study was leaked about basically our government knew that we couldn’t win in Vietnam and we sent our guys over there, dying away in vain. Awful and everyone knows that Nixon hated the media also. You look at a lot of Trump’s language, it’s similar to — to Nixon’s language when he was in office. Roger Stone, who’s another despicable person was a big Nixon guy. Roger Stone’s close to Trump, so just that little connection there. So it’s no surprise that Trump has decided to go after the media and try to discredit them. It’s also what an authoritarians do because what’s the real role of the free press? The role of the press is to hold our government officials accountable and what’s the first thing the Nazis did the same thing. Hitler did the same thing. He tried to take out the press because that informs the press. The role of the press is to inform the people, right? The press is to serve the governed, not the governors. That’s what Justice Hugo Black said in the Supreme Court case that the Pentagon Papers ended up creating — causing because The New York Times got the story first about the Pentagon Papers and, of course, the Nixon administration freaked out, tried to get an injunction. They did, then The Washington Post got access to the Pentagon Papers and they were supposed to — they wanted to publish. It was a big thing. What should they publish? Should they not? Nixon tried to use the full weight of the government to stop them from doing it and they lost and it is one of the most landmark, significant cases for press freedom in the history of this country. And in that case, Justice Hugo Black, he said this: “In the First Amendment, the Founder Fathers gave the free press the protection it must to fulfill it’s essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The government’s power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the government. The press was protected, so that it could bear the secrets of the government and inform the people. Only a free and unrestrained press can effectively expose a deception in government.”
Now, that case was about revealing government secrets. It wasn’t against the national security interests of the U.S., revealing what happened with — with Vietnam and what went on, but that was — it was in the past, though. It wasn’t happening right then, that study. But the point of that is to reiterating [sic] right of the free press and the role. It’s not to be a lapdog to the President of the United States. It’s not to make the President, you know, feel good about himself like Fox News does, okay. Fox News jerks the President off every single day. It is political masturbation on that channel. That’s right. I said it. That’s what that is. That’s not the role of a free press. It’s supposed to hold people accountable. We do not go out there and deliberately lie. That’s not what we do. That’s not what responsible journalists do. Do we get it wrong sometimes? Yes. Are we the enemy of the people? No. Are we generating fake news on purpose? No. Some right-wing sites are, some left-wing sites are, the fringes do that. Mainstream media does not. You can argue if there’s an agenda. Maybe, you know, a point of view which you tell the stories. But we are not, under any circumstances, the enemy of the people of this country and shame on the President of the United States for continuing to repeat that. Because when you do that, then wack jobs like this guy in Florida riding around in a van with all these sick pictures and targets on political opponents of the President with signs that says [sic] “CNN Sucks” and everything else, decided to take action into their own hands. So, I don’t want to hear it. You know, it was so — it was Fox News. Lou Dobbs on Fox News sent out a tweet in the middle of all this before they caught the guy, insinuating that they were fake. People — the bombs. Believe me, they weren’t fake. The calvary was called in when those bombs were discovered. ATF. Secret Service. FBI. Postal Inspectors. I mean, it was no joke. They were explosive devices. Poorly constructed, perhaps, that’s why they didn’t go off. But they were still treated as real, destructive devices. I saw some of the official reports. So, shame on someone who’s on a major news channel — Fox News Business, even employing this — this conspiracy theory bullshit, feeding this sickness of some of these people who thrive off of this nonsense. Trump himself even put out a tweet the morning that they caught this guy — before they caught him, putting “bombs” in quotes like they were making this up.
(....)
34:59
5 minutes and 4 secondsSETMAYER: Words matter. Words matter, especially when they’re coming out of the mouth of the President of the United States with the bully pulpit, with the largest platform, most reach, biggest, most responsible platform in the world, you keep repeating things that are wrong, inaccurate. What are we up to? Over 6,000 lies or inaccuracies coming from out of Trump’s mouth already and people — you give people an excuse. You know, my husband and I were talking about some of this before. We were talking people we’ve known about for a really long time and now, like when you hear them rationalizing Trump’s behavior it makes both of us kind of pause because, at some point, you have to decide if the integrity of this country is less important than your tax cuts or your Supreme Court? Just the very selfish things you want now. What are we doing to ourselves? Who are we as a people that we are rationalizing this? So you rationalize what Trump does. You make excuses for him. “Well, I don’t like what he says or how he says it, but look at what he does.” Really? Well, where do you draw the line with that? Where do you draw the line with that? Drug dealers are horrible people. They’re killing thousands of people, but guess what? There are some drug dealers that they care about folks in their community. They pay the rents for people. They buy people turkeys at Thanksgiving. They give, you know, buy sneakers for kids in the neighborhood. Well, so what? So what if they kill all kinds of people with their poison? They’re nice. They’re good to our neighborhood. What kind of rationalization is that? It’s about, like where we are with Trump. So what kind of people are these that continue to rationalize this? Tells you something about their character and people now, they’ve swung the other way. They say: “Well, Obama’s, you know, this, division, Obama divided us and blah, blah, blah.” Well, we can have discussions about things that Obama said during his presidency with things that, you know, that he — you know — bitter clingers and insulted people of faith and gun owners and things like that. Okay. But nothing like this. So people were insulted. They internalized it and here comes Trump. “Oh, no. I speak for you like a cult leader. I’m the one who speaks for you. I understand how you feel. I’m your voice.” And has given license to people who might have harbored some of these bigoted feelings or some of these, you know, some of these negative feelings and cultivated them, given them a license to say it’s okay now. Look at the President of the United States. Look what he says. Look how he acts. Would you want your kid acting like that? Could you imagine? I don’t know, some of these people might say yes. What does that say bout them? I’m fired up about this if you haven’t noticed because it just — it just concern me that the — that pendulum has swung so far the other way and that people are becoming what they claim to despise. And we have to be better. We have to do better and I’ll tell you right now. I stand in solidarity with my colleagues in the media. We will not be deterred. We will not be silenced. We will not be deterred.
Anderson Cooper said we will still be here despite what kind of anything — terrorism that you try to instill fear on us. You’re not going to silence us. We will still be here today, tomorrow, the next day, and the day after that. That’s right. Amen, Anderson. And Ida B. Well, she was a — who was a tough cookie. She was a black woman back in the 18 — the end of the 1800s. She was a Republican back when black folks were Republicans. She was an abolitionist. She was a journalist and she was — fought for civil rights and women’s rights. She was a tough chick. She didn’t take any shit from anybody and she famously said, “the way to right wrongs is to turn the light of truth upon them.” That’s what I try to do everyday. That’s what my colleagues in the media try to do and no bout of terrorism, intimidation, coming whether it was coming from domestic terrorism — terrorists or whether it was coming from the podium in the Oval Office in the White House in the press room in the White House or anywhere else or Fox News or Breitbart or anywhere else. No amount of intimidation will stop me, I can speak for myself at least from turning the truth of light upon them. That’s why we do what we do and that’s why I do what I do, especially hearing on Honestly Speaking.
