After noting that the media have been pushing for President Trump’s impeachment “for about three years now for just about any reason at all,” Fox News host Tucker Carlson brought in talk radio host Chris Plante to weigh in on the media hysteria surrounding the latest push for impeachment. In addition to describing the media’s role as “faithfully and dutifully carrying out the mission of the Democratic Party,” Plante slammed the media for failing to express any interest whatsoever in potential wrongdoing on behalf of former Vice President Joe Biden.
Plante, whom Carlson described as “the most incisive media critic we know,” reacted to clips of the media’s demands for impeachment by characterizing the media’s behavior as “pathological,” “manic,” and “really nutty.” The radio show host accused the media of “behaving like they’re lawyers” and “really just grabbing snippets from New York Times and parroting what they read this morning.” After reiterating the point that the media “work hand in glove with the Democratic Party,” Plante referred to the fourth estate as “the functional wing of the Democratic Party.”
Continuing to portray the media as Democratic shills, Plante slammed them for absolving “the Biden family past, present, and future of any wrongdoing, possible wrongdoing, theoretical wrongdoing” despite the fact that “we’ve got Joe Biden on tape, expressing what is clearly a quid pro quo involving a prosecutor he’s demanding be fired or we’re going to withhold aid. The prosecutor coincidentally is of course investigating a company that’s paying his son a great deal of money.” Plante highlighted that “the news media has no interest in this whatsoever” before predicting “if President Trump was on the phone demanding that they lay off of his son in Ukraine and fire the prosecutor that’s investigating his son...the news media might be onto a story there.”
As he outlined the “ever-evolving news story” that sparked the latest calls for impeachment, Plante contended that the media and the Democrats have “moved the goal post” when it comes to the threshold for impeachment. Plante ultimately concluded that the threshold is “just anything.” According to Plante, “the news media unscrupulously fails to ask all of the obvious and salient questions, that if you were just a curious high school newspaper reporter you might start asking. The American news media continues to fall down on the job.”
Towards the end of the conversation, Plante brought up a Bloomberg story accusing President Trump of “requesting help from a foreign government to tar or smear…his opponent.” Plante proceeded to explain “that’s what the dossier is,” referring to the Clinton-purchased smear document sensationalized by the media before, during, and after the Trump-Russia probe.
Plante lamented the fact that the same media that slammed President Trump for allegedly seeking out opposition research from a foreign government had no problem relying on “opposition research from Russian intelligence” designed to smear President Trump. This led Carlson to conclude that “whatever they’re accusing you of doing is exactly what they’re doing themselves.”
A transcript of the relevant portion of Tuesday’s edition of Tucker Carlson Tonight is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Tucker Carlson Tonight
09/24/19
08:46 PM
TUCKER CARLSON: Well, the media didn’t need today’s news to start pushing for impeachment. They have been pushing for that for about three years now for just about any reason at all.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIPS)
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: If precedent means anything in the Trump era, Donald Trump will be…must be impeached because of the crimes prosecutors say he committed in the Michael Cohen case.
ROBBY MOOK: Both parties need to get on board to pass articles of impeachment.
EDDIE GLAUDE JR: You have conspiracy, you have…you have obstruction, you have campaign finance, and you have emoluments. If the Democrats do not pursue this vigorously, they will be, in some ways, held accountable for abdicating their responsibility. It goes to the moral question, the ethical question. Democracy’s at stake.
(END VIDEO CLIPS)
CARLSON: I’m not a shrink but you can’t watch tape like that and look me in the face and say your average progressive activist is a happy person. They’re not. Well, MSNBC and CNN have reason, though, to get on board. They have been in deep trouble the last couple of months. After the Mueller report came out and turned out that the whole two last years have been an elaborate fraud, it looked like the impeachment story might be over and their ratings might be in a permanent slump but with this week’s news, they immediately roared back into action. Former Congressman David Jolly went on MSNBC to explain that delaying aid to far off nations you couldn’t find on a map is exactly the kind of tyrannical behavior the Founding Fathers staged a revolution to suppress.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DAVID JOLLY: When the Framers wrote the language around impeachment, they…they specifically wanted to reach abuse of power when there was not an underlying crime. This is the presidency that the authors and architects of the impeachment language feared. This was the presidency they were worried about.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
CARLSON: Hard to know if he’s being serious or not. Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt. He’s kidding. Chris Plante hosts “The Chris Plante Show,” probably the most incisive media critic we know; we’re always grateful to have him on the show. So…sorry. That…that last clip was so stupid. I’m…I’m speechless. So the press has wanted impeachment really since the day this guy got elected but if Trump were impeached and hauled off in manacles or wherever, or sent back to Palm Beach, they’d be the most disappointed people in America because like, what would they do, right?
CHRIS PLANTE: Oh, they’d be…the behavior is pathological at this point. It’s manic. It…it’s…it’s really nutty. I’m…I’m concerned for the well-being of a number of these people. You had the Lawrence O’Donnell, Robby Mook, Eddie Glaude Jr thing. They’re behaving as though they’re lawyers. They’re really just grabbing snippets from New York Times and parroting what they read this morning and faithfully and dutifully carrying out the mission of the Democratic Party; which is unfortunately the role of the vast majority of the news media in America. They work hand in glove with the Democratic Party. They are in fact the…the…the…the functional wing of the Democratic Party; the news media; much more functional than Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer on…on Capitol Hill. And they of course raise no questions whatsoever.
They have absolved the Biden family past, present and future of any wrongdoing; possible wrongdoing, theoretical wrongdoing. They’re in the clear. It doesn’t matter. We’ve got Joe Biden on tape expressing what is clearly a quid pro quo involving a prosecutor he’s demanding be fired or we’re going to withhold aid. The prosecutor coincidentally is of course investigating a company that’s paying his son a great deal of money. The news media has no interest in this whatsoever. Imagine if President Trump was on the phone demanding that they lay off of his son in Ukraine and fire the prosecutor that’s investigating his son. I think the news media might be onto a story there.
That…that could be an important story. We’re no longer in the realm of…of articles of impeachment involving high crimes and misdemeanors. Now, it’s an ever-evolving news story that started out in the New York Times as a call with the President of Ukraine and there was a promise made. What happened to that promise? That’s no longer the story. Then the Democrats wanted just the transcript or a recording. As soon as the President announced that they’re going to give them the unredacted transcript, Chuck Schumer moved the goal post. They’re in fact, Pelosi and Schumer, running all over the field like cartoon characters with the goal post and nobody knows what the threshold is anymore. And in reality, we know that it’s just anything. Anything will do. And the news media unscrupulously fails to ask all of the obvious and salient questions; that if you were just a curious high school newspaper reporter, you might start asking but amazingly the entire institution of the fourth estate in America, the American news media, continues to fall down on the job. I’m beginning to suspect that this is not just a…you know, a coincidence at this point. It’s…it’s remarkable. You know all the questions that you would ask and then you could ask…
CARLSON: Yeah.
PLANTE: …about the dichotomies between what Joe Biden did but they don’t ask that. You can ask…they say, I was reading a story today…it was a Bloomberg story saying that he was requesting help from a foreign government to tar or smear his…his opponent. Now, that’s what the dossier is. Did anybody miss this; the last two years in the whole dossier…
(LAUGHTER)
CARLSON: Right.
PLANTE: …is foreign…
CARLSON: That’s literally…
PLANTE: …and it’s from Russia, by the way.
CARLSON: …what it is.
CARLSON: I know from…
PLANTE: To smear the President…and then it was repackaged as a dossier…
CARLSON: I know it’s…
PLANTE: …it was just opposition research from Russian intelligence to smear…
CARLSON: Whatever…whatever they’re accusing you of doing is exactly what they’re doing themselves.
PLANTE: That’s precisely…
CARLSON: As always.
PLANTE: …right.
CARLSON: Chris Plante, great to see you.
PLANTE: Thanks, Tucker.
