I've been on a tear about cable news today so it seems fitting that I should say when they did something right. There was a moment during Nicolle Wallace's show where a former Republican and Florida Representative did not mince words about why it is that all of us, but Democrats in Congress in particular, should have anxiety and concern about what Donald Trump has done with regard to Iran and why we should not grant one iota of credibility to what is coming out of the administration right now.
Wallace asked about this video of an interview Hugh Hewitt did with Trump in 2015, where he clearly didn't know the difference between Quds and Kurds, and was clueless about who Soleimani was. Here's a snippet, via YouTube:
After pointing out that Trump has no interest in his PDB or any other effort to educate him about foreign policy, Nicolle Wallace asked bluntly, "Is the anxiety that people feel about Donald Trump being our commander in chief at this hour justified?"
Oh, hell yes it is. You betcha. But David Jolly's answer was better. I'll just put the whole transcript here:
But the anxiety is that we have a President of the United States that the American people don't fully trust. And that's true of even his own supporters at times. They know he lies. They don't trust his word, and they don't trust his competence.
Look, this is a president who has lied about his taxes, about Mexico paying for the wall, about his own health care. He's lied about the tax policy, about the health policy. He's lied about the denuclearization with North Korea, about the phone call with Ukraine, about having Mueller fired, he's lied about his relationship with Vladimir Putin. In matters of great consequence including a catastrophic hurricane approaching the United States, in times of great consequence he lies. His word can't be trusted and neither can that of his deputies like Mike Pompeo.
And then beyond his word his competence simply can't be trusted. And that's, to your point, of his conversation with Hugh Hewitt. This is not a president who cares about the finer details of foreign policy, nor will he understand it. And so the anxiety from Democrats on the hill, I think, is that they don't believe this president, and, frankly, neither do a number of Republicans.
There was more truth in this 2-minute clip than there was in 23 hours of cable news chatter with generals and former intelligence people, with those promoters of the Iraq war who have been called into service to sell us a bill of goods, or with the officials in this administration lying through their teeth to sell the impulsive act of an impeached president.
This is what we have to see more of every minute of every day. No more selling war. Just the truth, and the truth is that Trump lies about everything.
