Media Matters' Brock: “The Story Isn't What Donald Trump Wants The Story To Be,” It's Trump's “Dangerous” Rhetoric

David Brock On CNN: “I Don't Care If It's A Video Or A Tweet,” ISIS Is “Using His Words To Recruit”

Written by Media Matters Staff

Published

From the December 21 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:

JOHN BERMAN (HOST): Attacks against Hillary Clinton. Donald Trump made a few of them tonight but on at least one, isn't he right? There is no video that we know of of ISIS showing Donald Trump to recruit people right now, is there? 

DAVID BROCK: I don't think Donald Trump is right. I think he's wrong. We know a few things that we can agree on. One, national security counterterrorism experts across the spectrum, right and left, say that Donald Trump's words are being used as a recruitment tool for ISIS. I could give you a list longer than my arm of tweets, blog posts by ISIS fighters using Trump's words to incite and so I think what he's done here is turn the story around, but the real story here is what he's doing is really serious, it's really dangerous and it has the potential, God forbid if we get hurt again that he has the blood of his fellow Americans on his hands.

BERMAN: I have heard many analysts say that Donald Trump's words could be used for ISIS recruit. I have heard many analysts say that Donald Trump's words are inflammatory and the type of thing ISIS could use. I have not seen a single video that ISIS has used to recruit using Donald Trump. Do you have such a video? Can you produce such a video?

BROCK: I can show you the social media --

 BERMAN: But there's not a video?

BROCK: Not that I know of there is no video, no. But there's a lot of video out there, all over Al Jazeera, over CNN Arabic, that can certainly be used to incite. And that's really the story, here. The story isn't what Donald Trump wants the story to be.

[...]

BERMAN: Are facts as important as winning?

BROCK: Sure they are. In the culture we're in, it does seem that facts are not as important as they maybe once were. But look -

[CROSSTALK]

BROCK: We have aggressive fact checking on all sides now, I think that's very healthy. At the end of the day, what this little incident showed is that Donald Trump was able to create a story about a video. I don't care if it's a video or a tweet, they're using his words to recruit. That's the fact, that's the fact that Hillary Clinton said, and that stands.