Meet The Press Allows Trump Surrogate To Lie, But Questions Clinton’s Trustworthiness

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Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 07:19 pm

Here’s an example of the kind of belabored false equivalency and double standard that is pushed by Republicans and the media about Hillary Clinton’s trustworthiness problem. This is just one example from one show, but this narrative is being beaten to death across the mainstream media and by Republicans.

On Meet the Press, Chuck Todd was asking about Donald Trump’s temperament and his comments that are in line with Putin’s goal to diminish NATO. Trump’s surrogate, the conspiracy-fueled General Michael Flynn, got to “explain” by not explaining Donald Trump’s position on NATO after Trump said,”NATO is obsolete and it’s extremely expensive to the United States.

And by explain this away, I mean Flynn said nothing about Trump’s actual position.

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Transcript via Meet the Press, my bold:

CHUCK TODD:

Let me ask you unequivocally, where is he on NATO? Does he believe in it as a robust, important institution?

LT. GENERAL MICHAEL FLYNN:

Yeah. I mean I’m going to state, just like the current Supreme Allied Commander just recently said: What NATO needs to be done with is it needs to be modernized. The organizations, the nations, that are part of NATO, they need to understand what their capabilities are. And they need to understand what their responsibilities are.

And one of those responsibilities, when you become a member of NATO and you sign up for the responsibilities that not only come with providing capability, but also, being able to have others respond for you in time of need, is to pay your bills. And I mean that’s a big deal. So this doesn’t mean that we’re not going to support our responsibilities as America. But this means people have to realize–

CHUCK TODD:

He actually said that he might withhold, that you have to think about those things. I mean was that a responsible thing to say?

LT. GENERAL MICHAEL FLYNN:

Yeah, I think what we have to do is we have to make sure that we understand what our responsibilities are in an alliance like N.A.T.O.. And I think that, again, I’m going to go back to what I have seen our previous, particularly our military commanders, but also, others that are part of this system, if you will, this alliance, that have said that they understand that they need to do more.

So in no way did Flynn say that Donald Trump didn’t mean what he said about NATO, nor did Flynn clarify or explain Trump’s actual position or why he said what he said.

Here’s another way Trump put it (my bold), “If we cannot be properly reimbursed for the tremendous cost of our military protecting other countries, and in many cases the countries I’m talking about are extremely rich. Then if we cannot make a deal, which I believe we will be able to, and which I would prefer being able to, but if we cannot make a deal, I would like you to say, I would prefer being able to, some people, the one thing they took out of your last story, you know, some people, the fools and the haters, they said, ‘Oh, Trump doesn’t want to protect you.’ I would prefer that we be able to continue, but if we are not going to be reasonably reimbursed for the tremendous cost of protecting these massive nations with tremendous wealth — you have the tape going on? With massive wealth. Massive wealth. We’re talking about countries that are doing very well. Then yes, I would be absolutely prepared to tell those countries, ‘Congratulations, you will be defending yourself.’â€

Trump is getting a pass for this? His surrogates are asked to explain something he more than suggested and they are not explaining it but no one is torturing themselves over every word spoken otherwise, “Congratulations, you will be defending yourself” would be trending everywhere.

In contrast, we are once again rehashing the way Hillary Clinton answered a question with Chris Wallace during a Fox News interview, which she already clarified on Friday but we are doing it again because apparently when Clinton explains things, she is untrustworthy. Yes, it’s about her emails. How did you ever guess?

The question is why can’t Hillary Clinton perfectly answer questions about her emails without needing to clarify? I have answered this question in a way that Hillary Clinton can’t here. This is not a Hillary Clinton problem any more.

CHUCK TODD:

Yamiche, she cannot seem to– she’s got to clarify— I mean she herself just said, “I’ve got to clarify again.” This is a year now.

YAMICHE ALCINDOR:

If you’re Hillary Clinton, the last words that you want to be saying this summer are, “I have to clarify,” or, “I’m short circuited.” The idea that she’s still talking about this and it’s still mushy and people are still wondering how you haven’t come to a kind of clear answer on this, to me, goes to the fact that she has real credibility issues.

Speaking of credibility issues, Donald Trump is such a liar that we simply can’t keep track of his lies. He makes up videos and denies saying what he is on tape saying. If anyone here has a problem with being dishonest, it is Donald Trump. That is not up for debate.

why does Trump get a pass for moving the goal posts on his platform and policies as he sees fit, but when Clinton needs to clarify an answer ten times because we are parsing ONE word, it’s a signal that she is not trustworthy?

The word was “public”. The FBI Director did not say that Clinton was truthful with the public. This is what she told Chris Wallace, but she clarified on Friday that she said that because she told the public the same thing she told the FBI.

It’s Sunday and now we’re standing over Hillary Clinton’s one word conflation flub in an interview (not a written speech, where careful consideration is given to each word) and we are equating that to her trustworthiness problem?

Clinton has a trustworthiness problem because it has been built by the Republicans and aided by a press who keeps falling for Republican “tips”.

I get that the press is overworked with fact-checking Donald Trump. And the point here is not that Hillary Clinton should not be fact-checked. She should be. But the weight given to the fact checks must be of some relationship instead of apples to oranges.

Where does Trump stand on NATO? We know what he said and now we have some word salad gibberish that didn’t disavow what Trump said earlier, just covered it in salad dressing, yet Clinton is bashed for being untrustworthy for the way she tries to explain this ginned up, debunked email controversy.

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