Ari Melber shows that Fox News was a crucial part of Trump's Ukraine plot
Published
Citation From the December 5, 2019, edition of MSNBC's The Beat with Ari Melber
ARI MELBER (HOST): The impeachment probe moving forward against President Trump even as he and aides refused to testify or explain their conduct. Now, I've told you we're going through new facts in the intelligence report, not just talking -- though we do plenty of talking. And I want to show you something else right now, how this report stitches together evidence from Trump and his aides. So, while they won't testify, the report emphasizes that Democrats think they can prove key, damning parts of this plot based partly on these scheming and intimidating statements in public, specifically broadcast live on Fox. Which looks especially bad because it was occurring before this whistleblower came forward, like back in April, when no one was talking about Ukraine, [Rudy] Giuliani suddenly took an interest in a then-obscure company, Burisma.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
RUDY GIULIANI (TRUMP PERSONAL ATTORNEY): So, I began getting some people that were coming forward and telling me about that. And then all of a sudden they reveal this story about Burisma and Biden's son.
[END VIDEO]
MELBER: “All of a sudden," “Biden's son." The impeachment probe is finding evidence that Trump's Ukraine plot was fundamentally about propaganda. The goal was pushing Ukraine to damage the Bidens in public, not about actually investigating foreign corruption. It was about getting talk of Biden and corruption on American television, in a loop from Fox News, back to Ukraine, back to CNN, an entire political conversation that was designed to tarnish the Biden brand. As a key witness cited in the report explained, it was all about hitting Biden on-air, not whether anyone actually did the investigations.
...
MELBER: And this new report we have documents it, with Giuliani secretly plotting in March to get the probe launched, while publicly touting his clues on television. Now, that plot was of course exposed, so it partly failed. But the report shows, more exhaustively than we've ever seen until this week, how it was supposed to work, a kind of a drum beat building to what they planned; an international televised announcement of a probe which, had that happened, it would have made Giuliani and Co. look, maybe prescient, when in fact they were “predicting," quote-unquote, the outcome they were secretly engineering, backed by the frozen money and all the other White House plotting. So, take a look in April, as the report notes, on the same day conservative writer John Solomon pushed Biden allegations, Giuliani went on Fox News to push them further.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
GIULIANI: I got information about three or four months ago that a lot of the explanation for how this whole phony investigation started will be in the Ukraine, that there were a group of people in the Ukraine that were working to help Hillary Clinton and were colluding, really, with the Clinton campaign. And it stems around the ambassador and the embassy being used for political purposes.
[END VIDEO]
MELBER: A month later, Giuliani was darkly predicting Biden would be investigated by Election Day, but falsely claiming the investigation was coming not because Giuliani wanted, it but because it was warranted.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
GIULIANI: It's a big story, it's a dramatic story, and I guarantee you, Joe Biden will not get to Election Day without this being investigated. Not because I want to see him investigated, this is collateral to what I was doing.
[END VIDEO]
MELBER: The evidence shows that's false. Trump and Giuliani did want him to be investigated. That's why they were predicting it. The report shows Trump was in on all the plotting, pushing another Ukraine conspiracy, guess where, also on Fox News.
[BEGIN VIDEO]
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: Take a look at Ukraine. How come the FBI didn't take the server? Podesta told them to get out. He said get out. So, how come the FBI didn't take the server from the DNC?
[END VIDEO]
MELBER: Trump and Giuliani pushed those false conspiracy theories to try to hurt Biden, and they wound up hurting themselves. But here's the question: Did they believe those things were true? Maybe, which could explain why this plot backfired so badly. It's one thing to cook up a propaganda drug deal to trick others. It's another thing to trick yourself. And since John Bolton so memorably brought up the idea of cooking drugs, this is where the Ukraine plotters violated a crucial crack commandment. Number four, I know you've heard this before, never get high on your own supply. Maybe they were so high on Crowdstrike and Burisma they started believing it and it maybe clouded their judgment. That is not a legal defense.
In fact, as this report documents, the goal of propaganda is to hurt your opponents regardless of the truth. For all the talk of the 2016 servers, the evidence shows Trump wanted to run basically the same play that worked in 2016. Hillary Clinton was never actually indicted, let alone convicted over emails. Everyone knows that. And the new emails that did get rumored and come out, they didn't change the outcome of those investigations. But boy, do you remember this? If you take one thing from this special report, let it be this. Do you remember how just the talk of potential investigations, reopening investigations, especially if you talk about it on Fox News, followed by bad news, well, that can really affect an election, right?
[BEGIN VIDEO]
GIULIANI: And then I think he's got a surprise or two that you're going to hear about in the next few days. I mean, I'm talking about some pretty big surprise.
MARTHA MACCALLUM (ANCHOR): I heard you say that this morning. What do you mean?
GIULIANI: You'll see.
[END VIDEO]
MELBER: “You'll see," he said. That was 2016. Here they were at it again, with the same person, on the same channel, and the same type of propaganda, with some details different. This time though, it blew up. It looks like it may get Donald Trump impeached, which is where Biggie Smalls gives way to Sean Carter: When it comes to framing your opponent, the same sword that knight you, can good night you.