Has it come this? Conservatives need to rely on the liberal Mark Halperin to "follow up" on CNN's softball interviews with Hillary Clinton? On Wednesday, he grilled top Clinton adviser Jennifer Palmieri on a question the 2016 candidate ignored when she was on CNN. In early July, Brianna Keilar asked Clinton a question about deleting 30,000 e-mails. The Democrat didn't answer.
Halperin zeroed in: "We're going to play the role, real quick, of CNN follow-up reporter. Hillary Clinton did an interview with CNN. She answered a lot of the questions. There were at least a couple she didn't answer. So, we wanted to play one of those for you and have you answer it."
A contentious exchange followed:
[CNN clip.]
BRIANNA KEILAR: Can you tell me the story of how you decided to delete 33,000 e-mails and how that deletion was executed?
HILLARY CLINTON: Well, let's start from the beginning.
HALPERIN: All right. So, she gave an answer but did not address it. So, I just want to focus on the second part of Brianna Keilar's question, which was what was the process by which her server got erased?
PALMIERI: I'm not sure that that was actually the full question that they just showed.
HALPERIN: It was the full question.
PALMIERI: Really? Okay. No, that's fine.
HALPERIN: Two part question. She said how did you decide and then how was it done?
PALMIERI: Okay, fine.
HALPERIN: So, just that question. How was it done? What was the process by which it was done?
PALMIERI: The process was some of her lawyers looked through all of the e-mails. They, at the time, it was in the fall of 2014.
HALPERIN: I'm not talking about sorting. I'm saying when she got down to –
PALMIERI: I'm getting – I'm getting –
HALPERIN: We got down – We only have so much time.
Despite Halperin's attempts to pin her down, Palmieri played dumb:
HALPERIN: Physically, what happened with the server?
PALMIERI: That, I don't know.
HALPERIN: You don't know?
PALMIERI: I mean, the server – I don't know. I think the server – I don't really understand --
HALPERIN: You don't know who did the deletion or how they did it?
PALMIERI: No, but I know that they went through all the 64,000 e-mails and divided up the ones they thought were personal and the ones they thought were professional.
HALPERIN: But you don't know how it was actually deleted?
PALMIERI: No, I don't.
Perhaps this was Halperin's attempt to make up for questioning Ted Cruz's racial authenticity. Or perhaps this was the journalist's way of balancing out the news that his show, With All Due Respect, will actually air live from Clinton headquarters on Thursday. Either way, conservatives shouldn't be forced to rely on Mark Halperin to ask the follow-up questions CNN journalists are too intimidated to offer.
