okay, so I mentioned this before the break. Let's get now to the full embarrassment. That
was Donald Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney on Fox news Sunday with Chris
Wallace yesterday. This will be something different. We're going to look in detail at
an interview and there is so much to learn from this interview that Chris Wallace did
with Trump's acting chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney.
I already played for you. The short clip in another story of Mick Mulvaney claiming that
even though Donald Trump is the president of the United States, that that's just one
of his gigs effectively, that Trump still considers himself to be in the hospitality
industry. So we won't go back over that. That's ridiculous enough. What was actually far more
embarrassing was the way in which Mick Mulvaney came completely unglued, trying to deny directly
to Chris Wallace, his face, having said things that are on video, which Chris Wallace was
prepared for and threw right back at me in Mick Mulvaney, his face with clips. And it
is glorious now. You don't often see this in media, in the United States in general,
and when you do, it's not usually on Fox news, but I am, uh, I believe that we are in such
a desperate circumstance when it comes to proper preparation by an interviewer for interviewing
someone that you believe is likely to be deceptive and to be ready not only with video clips,
but with facts and quotes and the demeanor to actually question it.
That this is what we have. And I want to go through it with you. We're going to look at
a bunch of this in pieces because not only is the subject matter important, but it's
good to be able to parse it. It's good to be able to understand how Chris Wallace structured
it and there's a lot to be learned from this and the other thing to keep in mind is this
is much more common in British news media. This is much more common in [inaudible]. I
watch a lot of Argentinian news. This is much more common in Argentinian media where in
the U S very often with people in positions of power, once they give you the same non-answer
or lie two or three times, you just move on and it's a combination of not wanting to push
the interview in a way where you are at risk of maybe losing access to the person or an
administration combined with the time constraints of corporate media. Chris Wallace does not
let it go and you actually expose Mick Mulvaney as the absolutely immoral Trump Brown knows
or that he is willing to tell lie after lie after lie. Let's look at the first clip.
All right, let's have the conversation. Yeah. Y here's my first question. Why did you say
in that briefing, the president Trump had ordered a quid pro quo quid pro quo that investigating
the Democrats, that the aid to Ukraine depended on investigating the Democrats. Why'd you
say that? Getting aside what I said, that's what people said that I said, here's what
I said. I'll say it again and hopefully people will listen this time. There were two reasons,
sins that we held up the aid. Um, we've talked about this at some length. The first one was
the, uh, the rampant corruption in Ukraine. Ukraine. By the way, Chris was so bad in Ukraine
that in 2014, Congress passed a law, uh, making it a way of making us, uh, requiring us to
make sure that corruption was moving in the right direction. So corruption is a big deal.
Everybody knows it. The president was also concerned about whether or not other nations,
specifically European nations were helping with foreign aid to the Ukraine as well. We've
talked about that, uh, for, for quite a while now. I did then mention that in the past,
the president had mentioned for me to time to time about the DNC server. He had mentioned
the DNC server to other people publicly. He even mentioned it to president Zelinsky in
the phone call, but it wasn't connected to the aid and that's where I think people got
sidetracked this weekend at that press conference. Two reasons for holding back the aid. Uh,
let me, let me pursue that though because I believe that anyone listening to what you
said in that raping could come to only one conclusion. Let's play what you said sir.
Did. He also mentioned to me in the past that the corruption related to the DNC server.
Absolutely. No question about that. Um, but that's it. That's why we held them.
The money you just described is a quid pro quo. It is. Funding will not flow unless the
investigation into the, into the democratic server, uh, happened as well. We do, we do
that all the time with foreign policy.
He mentioned the corruption and that's why we held up the money and we do it all the
time with foreign policy all the time. We withhold aid for things like this is what
Mick Mulvaney is saying. So Chris Wallace comes back after Mulvaney tries to filibuster
for a little while and says, yeah, but hold on mic. What about the video where you set
it and Moe veiny immediately starts to come apart.
You were asked specifically by Jonathan, Carl was investigating Democrats, one of the conditions
for holding up the aid. Was that part of the quid pro quo and you said it happens all the
time and go back and watch what I said before that I don't know if you guys can cue it up
or not. There was a long answer about corruption and along totally sundown like I told you
then and then I said the exact same thing I just said now.
So he starts to just do doublespeak and a minute later after again filibustering Chris
Wallace Wallace goes back at him with more clips, which he has prepared another moment
where Mick Mulvaney said exactly the thing Chris Wallace is accusing him of. Having said,
despite Mulvaney attempting to deny to Chris Wallace his face,
and you know I, I hate to go through this, but, but you said what you said and the fact
is after that exchange with Jonathan Carl, you were asked another time why the aid was
held up. What was the condition for the aid and you didn't mention two conditions. You
mentioned three conditions and I want to, and let's listen to all three of them because
this, you stated it very clearly. Let's listen. Three issues for that. The corruption in the
country, whether or not other countries were participating in the support of the Ukraine
and whether or not they were cooperating in an ongoing investigation with our department
of justice. That's completely legitimate. Not only did you say that investigating the
Democrats was one of the three conditions not to that you had just said that you would
talked about investigating the Democrats was part of the quid pro quo. You also said if
I may, it was part of the justice department investigation into the origins of the Russia
pro, but
so Wallace keeps going and to his credit these officials count on that. If you tell the same
lie over and over again to corporate media, eventually the interviewer is going to move
on either because they don't want to get in trouble with the administration or they want
to save face or they're pressed for time or whatever the case may be. But Chris Wallace
is not moving on each time. Mick Mulvaney looks like more of a liar, which he is.
Look to the facts on the ground. Things that you can actually sort of certify and the what.
What should put this issue to bed is that the money flowed without any connection whatsoever
to the DNA in your first day, which I gave you. So that's why we held up the money first.
You just said here that it was for two reasons. Now you're acknowledging it was for three
reasons. If you held up the money for three reasons, that was, that's a quid pro, fine.
You've got to satisfy on us on those. Now maybe the president backed off that, but that
was the proposition here. I'm not acknowledging this three reasons. Again, let's go back.
That's very reasonable. Back to the I, I recognize that. Go back to what actually happened in
the real world.
I love that you really have to be careful with these guys because they have media training.
Mick Mulvaney knows at least in terms of demeanor and verbosity how to talk to corporate media
and to come away sounding like he makes sense even though he's saying a and then the opposite
of a Mulvaney says, I never said that. There were three reasons and Wallace says, well
you did. I played it for you and Mulvaney says, I acknowledge that if you're a casual
viewer, you're hearing Mick Mulvaney in a 62nd clip. Deny that. He said there were three
reasons for the aid being withheld and also say, I acknowledge that. Is he saying that
he acknowledges having said it, but he misspoke is he's saying he acknowledges that actually
there were three reasons even though he's out of the other side of his mouth telling
that there were not actually three reasons. What does it mean it's confusing. What it
means is that he's a liar. Of course. Then Mulvaney gets to the disastrous phone call
transcript, which of course was not a transcript. It was a few plucked paragraphs from the transcript
which was released. Trump released it, thought it made him look great. It actually was an
incriminating transcript in reality, just a truncated summation of the call, excerpts
of the call, and now it really starts to go bad for Mick Mulvaney because Chris Wallace
was prepared for the phone call discussion.
In the briefing, you flatly denied any connection between holding up the aide and investigating
Joe Biden and his son, right? Correct. Okay. In his phone call with president Zelenskyi,
however, president Trump's specifically men [inaudible] do me a favor. Trump lawyer, Rudy
Giuliani pushed all summer for Ukraine to announce it was investigating Barisma the
company that paid Hunter Biden and a former NSC official testified this week before Congress,
John Bolton was so disturbed by the way, you are directing people to work with Rudy Giuliani.
He said, quote, I am not part of whatever drug deal he was speaking metaphorically of
whatever drug fields sandal under us. Diplomat and Mulvaney are cooking up. No question.
You were following the president's orders, but your fingerprints are all over linking
aid to Ukraine with investigating the Biden's. Right. Okay. No that's not true. Let's go.
I'll take one of those at a time, which is the Bolton thing because I read that and I
was surprised cause John Bolton never complained to me about it.
No one at NSF SI ever complained to me about anything that was going on. I didn't see [inaudible]
testimony this week cause none of us have seen SoundLens testimony, which is another
story entirely. I did get a chance to read his opening statement when he said that Bolton
never complained to him feeling a, he'll never got a chance to complain to him. Think you
need to put sort of what a minute. Fiona Hill is the one who testified, that's the quote
came from, never complained to Sohn about what was happening when it was happening.
She complained to her boss, John Bolton, who did what, who we said, who told her to go
immediately to a lawyer right at the NSC and to complain about us for John Bolton. John
Bolton didn't go say anything to anybody. Doesn't that raise a red flag with it? But
let's go back to the first one you talked about, which is the president's phone call
because at the end of the day, that's what this is really about, right? That's why we
are here.
Well, this I don't know about that. I don't agree on this was mixed MySQL mischaracterized.
This is another technique. Okay. Understand that this is a technique that officials under
pressure will often use. It's a sort of Gish Gallop where instead of answering the crux
of the question, instead of getting to the heart of the matter, they give four different
pseudo rebuttals to minor points that don't actually refute the substance of what it is
that's being discussed, but it appears to the untrained. By that I mean not in a pejorative
way to just casual news, yours who have lives and go to work and take care of their kids.
It appears as though make Mulvaney has refuted the narrative that Chris Wallace has presented
when in reality he has it. The big picture is Mulvaney as an obvious liar. He's trying
to suck up to Trump until Trump turns on him because Mulvaney will be ridiculed in the
same way that Giuliani for awhile was pulled off the air because it became too embarrassing.
Mulvaney now has been very publicly doing lots of interviews. In the wake of the Ukraine
fiasco, he may end up getting pulled. Chris Wallace was well prepared here. Chris Wallace
was prepared with clips and with knowledge and with quotes, and he does something that
I try to do when I interview public officials. When I interview a scientist, I go in with
my questions prepared to learn. I want to learn from the scientist. When I interview
an elected official, I want to go in anticipating what their answers are going to be to my questions
and how they may attempt to either distort or not answer. And that's exactly what Chris
Wallace did here. And as prepared as Chris Wallace is still, when someone like Mulvaney
comes in prepared to fill a Buster ready to question minor points in a Gish Gallop format,
even unexperienced interviewer like Chris Wallace can get thrown off track in the moment.
And that's something that unless you're doing interviews like this can be difficult to understand
how it happens, but overall, very solid Mulvaney looking like the dishonest Trump Brown noser
that he is. Uh, and we'll be posting clips from this interview on our Instagram page
as well. I hope you'll follow us there at David Packlane on Instagram while you're in
your Instagram app, give me a follow as well@daviddotcom