With Russia having commenced a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Thursday morning, pure liberal partisans clamored for a response with the war going down on President Biden’s watch. Not surprisingly, many decided to blame Donald Trump, but others took the farcical route by suggesting the January 6 riot at the U.S. Capitol was to blame.
Among the latter group was CNN White House correspondent John Harwood, CNN contributor Garrett Graff, and liberal media darling Alexander Vindman.
Graff tweeted just after 7:00 a.m. Eastern this hot take:
A few minutes later, he doubled down on the 2016 aspect with the left’s conspiracy theory that Russia — and not voters — made Donald Trump President:
Harwood piggybacked on these galaxy brain opinions from Graff (who was Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign webmaster) and reminded us of how this was the same liberal hack who moderated the infamous a 2016 GOP presidential debate:
Our friends over at Twitchy collated a sampling of those chiming in to call out their lunacy, including talk radio host Erick Erickson, Michael Duncan of Ruthless, and our friend Sister Toldjah of RedState.
Outside of that round-up, Mark Hemingway fact-checked Graff’s claims about 2016: “Just so we’re clear, there's no evidence Russia changed a single vote in 2016. The idea Putin is some mastermind manipulating American politics for the last six years was invented by the pundit class to explain losing an election.”
The always insightful Jeff Charles brought a little humor to his takedown: “Not even Simone Biles could execute this level of mental gymnastics.”
And former aide to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT) Matt Whitlock called Graff’s “logic...quite stunning,” adding: “Russia weakened America by helping Trump get elected… but somehow couldn’t capitalize on it until Biden was in the White House (even though Biden was also there pre-2016 when Putin took Crimea). Interesting [Washington Post fact-checker Glenn Kessler] retweet here.”
On Wednesday night, MSNBC’s All In featured Vindman telling fill-in host Alex Wagner that Trump and Republicans will “have blood on their hands because they’ll be the ones responsible for encouraging Vladimir Putin” to invade Ukraine and inspiring him to do so because of what happened on January 6 (click “expand”):
WAGNER: Does it surprise you, the party that rallies around this notion of patriotism and uses it so often in rhetoric, that idea of patriotism seems to have completely vanished...when we’re talking about a foreign adversary in a possible realignment of the post-Cold War landscape? I mean, the criticisms of this sitting President and the praises of Vladimir Putin seem to be different than the Republicans suggests their party stands for.
VINDMAN: Well, I think that’s — it’s a symptom of the fact that Donald Trump has captured the Republican Party...He admires — deeply admires Vladimir Putin and the rest of the Republican Party...[W]e’ve known Vladimir Putin a horrible tyrant for 22 years...This war that’s about to unfold is going to have tens of thousands of casualties. We’ve not witnessed anything like this...This is going to be played all over every screen there is and the Republicans that have been pandering and catering to Donald Trump and to Vladimir Putin are going to own this. They are going to see the...massive damage...and they’re going to own being — they’re going to have blood on their hands because they’ll be the ones responsible for encouraging Vladimir Putin for offering the opportunity for portraying the U.S. is divided and that’s what Vladimir Putin was acting on when he started this build up just days after January 6 insurrection effort.
Maybe making such an ardent liberal partisan the poster child for civil and military service in 2019 and 2020 wasn’t the best idea.
Vindman’s desperate screed was brought to you by advertisers such as Fidelity and Oral-B. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from February 23, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes
February 23, 2022
8:09 p.m. EasternALEX WAGNER: Does it surprise you, the party that rallies around this notion of patriotism and uses it so often in rhetoric, that idea of patriotism seems to have completely vanished from the Republican Party at this moment when we’re talking about a foreign adversary in a possible realignment of the post-Cold War landscape? I mean, the criticisms of this sitting President and the praises of Vladimir Putin seem to be different than the Republicans suggests their party stands for.
ALEXANDER VINDMAN: Well, I think that’s — it’s a symptom of the fact that Donald Trump has captured the Republican Party. They’re pandering to Donald Trump. Donald Trump does not like Ukraine. He admires — deeply admires Vladimir Putin and the rest of the Republican Party, either out of fear or out of some sort of misplaced belief that he’ll take them to victory and to power is following him. The problem with that is, of course, Donald Trump is his own worst enemy. Everything Trump touches dies, and they’re digging their own hole. We have — we’ve known Vladimir Putin a horrible tyrant for 22 years. But frankly, we’ve not seen anything just yet. This war that’s about to unfold is going to have tens of thousands of casualties. We’ve not witnessed anything like this. When he conducted his campaign against Chechnya, thousands died. But that was — we were distracted, we weren’t paying attention, we weren’t as connected. This is going to be played all over every screen there is and the Republicans that have been pandering and catering to Donald Trump and to Vladimir Putin are going to own this. They are going to see the — [PLATES BREAKING] — massive damage that — sorry, there’s some serious disturbance over here.
WAGNER: No, no. Okay.
VINDMAN: Yes. So, they’re going to see the damage and they’re going to own being — they’re going to have blood on their hands because they’ll be the ones responsible for encouraging Vladimir Putin for offering the opportunity for portraying the U.S. is divided and that’s what Vladimir Putin was acting on when he started this build up just days after January 6 insurrection effort.
WAGNER: Yes. I think that it’ll be interesting to see if their rhetoric changes if and when there is a full-blown invasion and casualties.
