In discussing Nancy Pelosi's leaked comment that she'd rather see President Tony Soprano imprisoned than impeached, John Heilemann went a wee bit off-topic, and off-color, and Nicolle Wallace was HERE for it. Heilemann really wanted to focus on the reasons Speaker Pelosi is in this impeach vs. imprison situation to begin with, and one of the big ones rhymes with Spawn Clannity. And sometimes only one word will do to describe what you want to say, so Heilemann went there and said it. And he said it again. Then so did Nicolle Wallace. Then Heilemann said it again. Then at the end of the show they had to say sorry, but *pssssst* hey, Nicolle and John, we know you're not, and it's okay.
HEILEMANN: I haven't been on the show in a little while, so I'm going to warn anyone in the booth I'm going to use language that might need to be bleeped out. I think it's legal to say this. I yield to no one in my tendency to call bullshIt on people at Fox News when they lie. And so, obviously, Sean's full of it, right? We talk about the hypocrisy of what was on display with this thing last night, it's hypocritical. We talk about lunacy, I think was your phrase, it's lunatic. But it's not those things, mostly. What it mostly is is the relentless, disciplined, aggressive pursuit of a business model. The business model of Fox News is to create an alternative reality that's destroying the country. And in that alternative reality, Hillary Clinton is a criminal. She was a criminal from the day that Donald Trump said that thing on stage at the first debate, second debate in 2016, and then at the convention, the Republican convention, she's been a criminal then, a criminal now. They've created a world where there are tens of millions of people who think Hillary Clinton is a criminal. Sean's not crazy, he gets what he's doing. That's his business model. And I think to be clear-eyed about it is to understand what they're doing. And it's part of why Nancy Pelosi faces the decisions that she does. I've been critical of her, for how she's framed this impeachment debate, and I think she's not speaking clearly about it. I think she's undermining the House's institutional responsibility to pursue an impeachment inquiry. But the political reality she's confronting is the political reality created by Sean Hannity and his business model built on lies, and fantasy, and hypocrisy, and bullshit. And that is what she's dealing with every day, is that there are tens of millions of people that don't — not only haven't read the Mueller report, but don't think there's anything bad in the Mueller report about Donald Trump and still think Hillary Clinton, to this day, should be in jail. Until we get past that somehow, and I have no idea how to get past it, but until we get past it, it's gonna be the political challenge that someone like Nancy Pelosi has to navigate on this question.
WALLACE: You just turned this in a different direction. I'll put away what we were gonna talk about, and let's have this conversation. Because part of the reason --
HEILEMANN: I hope that's okay.
WALLACE: It's fine with me. You can talk to my producers later. Part of the reason Donald Trump won was because no one ever had a symmetrical debate with him. There is an asymmetry in this country, because the alternate reality is the reality in which Donald Trump thrives. It's where hand size matters, it's where not only do people think that Hillary Clinton committed crimes, which Jim Comey came out and said the opposite was true --
HEILEMANN: Helping Donald Trump win the election.
WALLACE: But it's a reality where spying occurred. So I guess the bottom line is, if this is a play and it's all bullshit, as you said, the play is in its second season and they recast the Attorney General, Sessions is out and Barr is in. It's getting more dire --
HEILEMANN: We have an Attorney General who has embraced the Fox News world of bullshit. That's what's happened and that's a hugely scary thing for the country.
No bullshit detected.
