Who better than a Democratic Senator to fact check his Republican colleague? That, apparently, is the view at MSNBC. Network anchor Andrea Mitchell on Monday erupted in anger that Republican Senator John Kennedy of Louisiana would dare spar with Chuck Todd. Regarding his appearance on Meet the Press, the MSNBC host assailed Kennedy for “embracing the discredited conspiracy theory that Ukraine meddled in the 2016 campaign.” She hyped, “We'll have a fact check on the senator's so-called proof coming up.”
Clearly, the best, most objective source on this is a partisan Democrat. Introducing Senator Chris Murphy, Mitchell enthused, “Senator, you as a foreign relation committee member, you as someone who has traveled repeatedly to Ukraine, can you help us fact check your colleague, Senator Kennedy?”
Republicans are not often invited on MSNBC with the explicit goal of “fact checking” their Democratic counterparts. But Mitchell let Murphy proclaim himself the final arbitor of truth when it came to the issue of Ukraine: “Nobody knows Ukraine better than I do. I've been there about five or six times.”
Mitchell then read a tweet from Donald Trump, something she found distasteful, saying: “We don't normally pick up his insults against other people, but since he's insulting our colleague, who did such a great job on Meet the Press and praising Senator Kennedy for propagating these myths.”
Here’s her question that’s not really a question:
But this is what's on his mind. “Thank you to great Republican Senator John Kennedy for the job he did in representing both the Republican Party and myself against Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd on Meet the Depressed.” We only do because he's the President of the United States. We don't normally pick up his insults against other people but since he's insulting our colleague, who did such a great job on Meet the Press and praising Senator Kennedy for propagating these myths, which according to Fiona Hill and the the intelligence agencies, Republican-led intelligence committees, and the intelligence agencies is Republican disinformation. What do you — How do we deal with that?
Notice the phrasing: “How do we deal with that?” The MSNBC host then closed out with another non-question, lecturing:
I just want to point out, Senator, that what CBS reported is in their reporting and what Ken Vogel reported when he was still at Politico before he want to the New York Times, it was, what they reported about Ukraine were these individual actors and it was not at all equivalent to what Russia did. So, once again, both this blog The Federalist.com, in amalgamating all this stuff and regurgitating by the Senators defending the President, who are being praised again today, is completely taken out of context. Senator Chris Murphy, thanks you on all points. Thanks for joining us today.
Murphy could be seen nodding in agreement through all of this. Just one liberal talking to another. Sadly, the idea of a Democrat fact checking a Republican isn’t new for the mainstream media. In January, CBS This Morning co-host Gayle King said she viewed the Democratic response to a speech by Donald Trump as the “fact check” of the President: “And that is why Democrats want to have a response immediately after the address so they can fact check it in real time.”
A transcript of Mitchell’s questions can be found below:
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12/2/1912:01pm
ANDREA MITCHELL: We'll have a fact check on the senator's so-called proof coming up.
12:05 PM ET
MITCHELL: Connecticut Democrat Chris Murphy sits on the foreign Relations Committee and joins me now. And we will be updating our reporting with other news organizations whom we’ve reached out to as well. Senator, you as a foreign relation committee member, you as someone who has traveled repeatedly to Ukraine, can you help us fact check your colleague senator Kennedy?
SENATOR CHRIS MURPHY: Nobody knows Ukraine better than I do. I've been there about five or six times. It's a hornet's nest of political rivalries, but it is simply a lie to say that the Ukrainian government and President Poroshenko himself meddled in the 2016 election. That is made up out of whole cloth and there is no credible reporting to support it.
...
MITCHELL: Let me also just point out that we’re not only talking about chapter one of the Mueller Report, which is catalogs why they were Russian officials, 13 Russians indicted for interfering and for hacking the DNC and other cyber crimes. None of them of course have been able to be arrested because the U.S. can't get them back from Russia. But the senate intelligence committee led by a Republican senator, Senators Burr and Warner came to the same conclusion, as did all of the 17 intelligence agencies. The President has just tweeted from Air Force One. This is what the President is tweeting about on his way to a NATO gathering that's going to investigate, as we’ll report later in the program, what to do about Afghanistan, Turkey and the like.But this is what's on his mind. “Thank you to great Republican Senator John Kennedy for the job he did in representing both the Republican Party and myself against Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd on Meet the Depressed.” We only do because he's the President of the United States. We don't normally pick up hi insults against other people but since he's insulting our colleague, who did such a great job on Meet the Press and praising Senator Kennedy for propagating these myths, which according to Fiona Hill and the the intelligence agencies, Republican-led intelligence committees, and the intelligence agencies is Republican disinformation. What do you — How do we deal with that?
MURPHY: listen, my hope has been all along that the senate would be able to survive the trump presidency, that we wouldn't be pulled down into this cesspool of lies and mistruths. It's sad to watch my colleagues willingly propagate these lies.
...
MITCHELL: And there's also — it's very clear when we go back to the initial CBS reporting, which was picking up Ken Vogel's reporting from politico that that's not either Ken Vogel or CBS has reported, as Politico has already let us know. We reached out to CBS, also as I say. We keep reaching out to Senator Kennedy's office. I just want to also bring up something else that's going on, which is that you're just back from Lebanon. You're doing what you did when you came back from Ukraine. You're raising a question why is the administration illegally freezing money that has been appropriated by both houses of Congress for military defense in Lebanon now as it did in Ukraine. What do you think is going on there? Now, we're talking about $100 million. This is realtime and it's a repeat potentially of what happened with Ukraine over the summer.
...
MITCHELL: And I just want to point out, Senator, that what CBS reported is in their reporting and what Ken Vogel reported when he was still at Politico before he want to the New York Times, it was, what they reported about Ukraine were these individual actors and it was not at all equivalent to what Russia did. So, once again, both this blog The Federalist.com, in amalgamating all this stuff and regurgitating by the Senators defending the President, who are being praised again today, is completely taken out of context. Senator Chris Murphy, thanks you on all points. Thanks for joining us today.
