Talk about being tone deaf and having no sense of self awareness. George Stephanopoulos, a former top aide to the impeached President Bill Clinton, on Thursday demanded to know about the “indelible mark” left by the Democratic effort to impeach Donald Trump.
The Good Morning America co-host interviewed White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham and chided, “We just heard President Trump overnight calling this an eternal mark of shame for Democrats. But how concerned is he behind closed doors that impeachment will be an indelible mark on his record?”
Now, Stephanopoulos left the Clinton White House before the Democrat was impeached in 1998, but he’s always been a staunch defender of his old boss against the effort to impeach him. As John Fund dug up in National Review back in 2015, Stephanopoulos even seemed to endorse a scorched earth policy of exposing the secrets of others in order to save Bill Clinton from impeachment. Here’s the February 8, 1998 edition of This Week:
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: White House allies are already starting to whisper about what I’ll call the Ellen Rometsch strategy. . . . She was a girlfriend of John F. Kennedy, who also happened to be an East German spy. And Robert Kennedy was charged with getting her out of the country and also getting John Edgar Hoover to go to the Congress and say, don’t you investigate this, because if you do, we’re going to open up everybody’s closets. And I think that in the long run, they have a deterrent strategy on getting a lot of . . . [FBI files].
SAM DONALDSON: Are you suggesting for a moment that what they’re beginning to say is that if you investigate this too much, we’ll put all your dirty linen right on the table? Every member of the Senate? Every member of the press corps?
STEPHANOPOULOS: Absolutely. The president said he would never resign, and I think some around him are willing to take everybody down with him.
Perhaps Stephanopoulos isn’t the best person to lecture on the damning nature of impeachment. (For examples of the political aide turned journalist sucking up the Clintons, go here.)
A partial transcript of the segment is below. Click "expand" to read more.
Good Morning America
12/19/19
7am
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Good morning, America. As we join you this Thursday morning, President Trump officially impeached. Overnight, he's fighting back. President trump the third American president impeached. The vote split down party lines. Democrats say Trump's abuse of power left them no choice. Republicans call it revenge for losing the election. Trump fired up at a rally overnight, saying Democrats will pay a political price.
7:07 AM
STEPHANOPOULOS: Let's bring in White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham now. Stephanie, thank you for joining us this morning. We just heard President Trump overnight calling this an eternal mark of shame for Democrats. But how concerned is he behind closed doors that impeachment will be an indelible mark on his record?
STEPHANIE GRISHAM: Thank you for having me. The President has said many times that this isn't something he necessarily wants on his resume, but it's been very clear from the start that this has been a very partisan impeachment and history isn't going to look kindly on the Democrats, led by Nancy Pelosi and Schumer and Nadler. And that's I think what the president has been saying and if you look at the polling numbers and it's showing that the American people also are seeing what's going on. His polling numbers continue to go up in terms of Americans don't want to see impeachment and they don't support impeachment.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, split down the middle actually on impeachment but moving on to the Senate trial right now. We now know Speaker Pelosi and the Democrats want witnesses in the Senate trial, an idea that President Trump has endorsed. Let's take a look.
DONALD TRUMP: When it's fair, it will fair in the Senate, I would love to have Mike Pompeo. I'd love to have Mick. I'd love to have Rick Perry and many other people testify, but I don't want them to testify when this is a total fix. I want them to testify, but I want them to testify in the Senate where they'll get a fair trial.
STEPHANOPOULOS: So will President Trump now ask those witnesses to appear at a Senate trial?
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STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, actually, 70 percent, according to polling, 70 percent of Americans think he did something wrong and there is a body of testimony showing the military aid was withheld an a White House meeting was withheld as the president was asking for these political investigations.
GRISHAM: Not political investigation, we wanted to look into corruption. That's very important and I think if the media would cover this fairly, then perhaps people wouldn't think he did anything wrong. He was looking into corruption. He wanted to make sure that the new president of Ukraine was holding up his end of the deal which is what he ran on which was no corruption. He wanted to make sure that before taxpayer dollars went to another country the corruption would be done.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You used the word corruption several times. A word the President never used in that phone call with the Ukranian president. But he did mention Biden several times.
GRISHAM: He did say that. He said, “Do us a favor,” meaning the country and he asked that we look into — they look into corruption which Vice President Biden is on the videotape, as you all know, talking about, until a prosecutor in the Ukraine got fired, they would withhold money. That is corruption so that was an example being used.
STEPHANOPOULOS: That was not corruption. That was U.S. foreign policy, the policy of the World Bank at the time and policy of the European Union and, again, the president didn't use the word corruption in that phone call. But I do want to move on to the President's comments about congressman Dingell last night. We showed them in the piece, Mary Bruce's piece ,drawing rebukes from many Democrats but also from Republicans. Cindy McCain tweeted and Fred Upton, one of the senior Congressmen from Michigan has also put up a tweet. I want to show it right there. He says, “I've always looked up to John Dingell my good friend and a great Michigan legend. There was no need to dis him in a crass, political way. Most unfortunate and an apology is due.” Will the President apologize to the Dingell family?
GRISHAM: I haven't spoken to the President about that. I would say that I am very, very sorry for her loss and I would thank her and her late husband for all of the service to our country. The President did lower the flags at the White House to half-staff to do everything he could to honor him at her request. So we'll see what happens from there. We do thank them for their service and again very sorry for her loss.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Why do you think the President said that overnight?
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STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, we’ll see if he apologizes later in the day. Final question: Thank you for coming. This is your first time on Good Morning America.
GRISHAM: Thank you for having me.
STEPHANOPOULOS: You've broken with tradition by doing away with the daily White House press briefings. In fact, as far as I can tell you've never held one. Why is that?
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