Disconnected from reality didn’t begin to describe what occurred on CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront on Monday night. Retired Colonel Lawrence Wilkerson was his usual unhinged self when he proclaimed that the 2020 presidential election was perfect before claiming (without evidence) “there was a little cheating” in Kentucky to reelect Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R). And completely ignoring the Russian collusion hoax, he claimed Republicans never get investigated for cheating.
And it all went uncontested by fill-in host Kate Bolduan.
It was a segment designed to criticize President Trump for accusations he's entertained from associates who've been peddling the bonkers idea of invoking martial law to rerun the election. Wilkerson began by equating the President’s associates to “rats” and suggesting he would force General Michael Flynn (ret.) back into active service just to send him to prison:
I think we're seeing just how desperate Trump is becoming himself and how desperate the last remaining rats on the ship, if you will, are becoming because of that. We see Bannon apparently coming back on scene again probably most ardently seeking a pardon.
We see things like you just pointed out, General Flynn -- I don't know, if I were in charge of the military, if I were the chairman (of the Joint Chiefs) or if I were the secretary of the Defense appropriately, I'd probably call Flynn back to active duty and then prosecute him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You can pick your charge there. Incitement to insurrection or whatever. These are desperate people.
“We've just been through an election that was monumental. More Americans turned out than any other election since World War II, maybe even before that in terms of percentage,” Wilkerson praised as he continued his rant. “More Americans voted and voted by different methods. States upheld their laws, upheld their precedents, upheld their protocols. They did a good job.”
Citing his credential as a supposed Republican, he then suggested, without evidence, that there was cheating in the Kentucky Senate race between McConnell and Democrat Amy McGrath:
Maybe in Kentucky there was a little cheating. I think the Kentucky race that Mitch McConnell was re-elected in against all percentages that pertained beforehand, and exit polling. And maybe there was something there, but you never look into the Republicans for cheating. And I can tell you that. I'm a Republican.
“But I think this election was incredibly well-done, magnificently well-done. And we should praise the states and all the people in the states who did it,” he then added.
The idea that Republicans were never the subject of cheating investigations would be laughable if it wasn’t so absurd. The majority of President Trump’s time in office was marred by the Russia collusion hoax. For three years, the media pushed the false narrative that Trump won in 2016 due to Russia “hacking the election.”
President-Elect Biden’s nominated director for the Office of Management and Budget, Neera Tanden, was a driving force behind the conspiracy theory that Russia hacked election systems and changed votes for Trump.
Both claims were outrageous, but they went completely uncontested by Bolduan, who didn’t bat an eye and continued to press on with knocking Trump for his similar claims about the election.
[H/T to Washington Examiner's Varad Mehta]
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
CNN’s Erin Burnett OutFront
December 21, 2020
7:05:02 p.m. Eastern(…)
KATE BOLDUAN: And we're learning, also, it was floated in the Oval Office meeting pushing for martial law in order to rerun the election?
COL. LAWRENCE WILKERSON (Ret): I think we're seeing just how desperate Trump is becoming himself and how desperate the last remaining rats on the ship, if you will, are becoming because of that. We see Bannon apparently coming back on scene again probably most ardently seeking a pardon.
We see things like you just pointed out, General Flynn -- I don't know, if I were in charge of the military, if I were the chairman (of the Joint Chiefs) or if I were the secretary of the Defense appropriately, I'd probably call Flynn back to active duty and then prosecute him under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. You can pick your charge there. Incitement to insurrection or whatever. These are desperate people.
But I remember something that Colin Powell used to admonish staff, both military and State Department quite frequently. Don't take counsel of your fears. And I think that's one of the things we need to do now.
We've just been through an election that was monumental. More Americans turned out than any other election since World War II, maybe even before that in terms of percentage. More Americans voted and voted by different methods. States upheld their laws, upheld their precedents, upheld their protocols. They did a good job.
Maybe in Kentucky there was a little cheating. I think the Kentucky race that Mitch McConnell was re-elected in against all percentages that pertained beforehand, and exit polling. And maybe there was something there, but you never look into the Republicans for cheating. And I can tell you that. I'm a Republican.
But I think this election was incredibly well-done, magnificently well-done. And we should praise the states and all the people in the states who did it. And now we need to not take counsel of our fears and understand we're going to get through this. And at noon on the 20th of January Joe Biden is going to be the new president of the United States.
BOLDUAN: But before then, Ben (Ginsberg), the one-- one other thing we do know is we have reporting that Rudy Giuliani has called over to the Department of Homeland Security to inquire that if DHS could seize voting machines. Bill Barr was asked about that also today. Let me play for you what he said.
(…)
