>> Imagine being a Democrat who understands the importance of getting Donald Trump out
of office because of his authoritarian tendencies and his brutal behaviors toward the press.
And then turning around and doing the exact same thing that Trump does. Well, that's what
we saw over the weekend by Joe Biden advocate by the name of Lindy Li, she's one of his
surrogates, and she tweeted it, and later deleted the following tweet.
Now that Tara Reade's story has completely imploded, which by the way, that's not true,
she just made that up. I hope the FBI investigates Nathan Robinson, Katie Halper, Ryan Grim for
their role in this fraud. Tara or whatever your actual name is, you have gravely harmed
me too survivors.
And then she uses the hashtags, IBelieveBiden, IBelieveJoe, TaraReadIsALiar. Now I just wanna
note, the deputy communications director for the Biden campaign came out and condemn this,
and his name is Bill Russo. I'm glad that he did, he said, to be clear, you do not speak
for this campaign and are not representing our values with comments like this.
If you really support the Biden campaign, you would do well to see the VP's or Vice
President's recent comments about how we respond with dignity and respect. So to Bill Russo,
you're doing a good job communicating the right way to handle this, so thank you, and
Lindy Li later deleted the tweet.
But understand what she's calling for there. She's calling for an FBI investigation into
journalists who merely did their jobs in reporting on this story. It's disgusting, and terrifying.
>> Here's what I've discovered about the world, breaking news. There's a lot of disturbed
people on the planet, and a lot of them have very official jobs.
They look like credible people and and they get validation through things like being a
delegate for major candidate like Joe Biden. But, there's now been a number of things that
Lindy Li has said that are strange to put it mildly. And so, this would have been more
concerning if it had gained traction.
But if it's just one delegate and the campaign denounces them, then the damage is limited.
But the idea of suggesting that you should arrest reporters who don't agree with you,
well, that would be Trumpian, obviously, and maybe even beyond. And, at least there is
some strand of it in the establishment.
And, look, it's not fair to put it on everyone else cuz I just explained at the same time,
what she's doing is a more extreme version. What you do see all over Twitter and from
the entire establishment, which is that this topic originally was verboten. So when Ryan
Grim first covered it for The Intercept, there was a ton of criticism.
Nobody went as far as Lindy did and said that he should be arrested, but they said he lost
credibility. When he was reading the story, same reporter at The Intercept also contributor
The Young Turks, bringing the Christine Blasey fourth story, they thought he was an American
hero. When he breaks up part of the Tara Reade's story they're like well, we always said in
fact Howard Dean even said it.
We always said that The Intercept is not legitimate, Ryan Grim is not legitimate. So Linda seeing
it one step further saying, well, if he's not legitimate is every one of my friends
in the establishment agrees. Well, now, I say I'll go further and by the way, giant
step forward, don't get me wrong and he should be arrested and so that should Katie Halper,
etc.
So those instincts are there. It's good to see the Biden campaign at least being forcefully
against them. >> Exactly, and you kind of reference this
but let me give more details to the audience. Lindy Li has gotten into trouble in the past
because of some of the deceptive ways she operates.
So she lost her job as treasurer of the Pennsylvania Young Democrats in February after tweeting
out a doctored video of Biden's then-opponent, Senator Bernie Sanders. And by the way, in
regard to her call to have the FBI investigate reporters who are simply doing their jobs
in investigating Tara Reade's accusations.
Don't forget that Joe Biden, the accused person here, told Mika Brzezinski just last week
that these are the types of things that should be investigated. If you forgot, here's the
video. >> Your words should we not start off with
the presumption that the essence that what she's talking about is real.
She says, you sexually assaulted her. >> Look, from the very beginning I've said,
believing women means taking the woman's claim seriously, when she steps forward and then
vet it. Look into it. That's true in this case as well, women have a right to be heard
and the pressure to rigorously investigate claims they make, and always uphold that principle.
I'm not suggesting she had no right to come forward, and I'm not saying any woman, they
should come forward, they should be heard. And then it should be investigated. It should
be investigated. >> So again, Biden called for the claims to
be investigated. And I just wanna remind you all what he said about the Blasey Ford accusations
back in September of 2018.
He said the following. This is the last graphic. For a woman to come forward in the glaring
lights of focus, nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption that at least
the essence of what she's talking about is real. Whether or not she forgets facts, whether
or not it's been made worse or better over time.
>> Yeah, but that cuts two ways cuz that if he knew that he had sexually assaulted someone
like that before, would he have made that strongest statement? I don't know.
>> I don't know. I'm not really interested in pop psychology. I don't know how his brain
works. >> So I don't know.
But look, I will tell you this, there's something we clearly do know and, I don't wanna let
this go without making this point. Now, the Biden campaign, the mainstream media think
it's perfectly legitimate to ask about Tara Read to investigate the issue. But back during
the primaries, they all thought it was illegitimate.
The New York Times did not cover it at all. CNN did not cover it at all. None of the major
outlets covered it even though that is when the story broke. For several weeks, they chose
not to cover the story. And yes, the establishment at the time was saying that it was the guys
like Ryan Grim who were covering it were illegitimate.
And they were questioning the motives of even the reporters saying, well, I mean as Katie
Halper a Bernie Sanders supporter, so thereby saying that anything that anyone ever says
that's a progressive is disqualified from a national conversation. So, but now that
Biden is against the Republican report, and by the way, it wasn't just the media, it was
also Biden's campaign.
They refused to have Biden make any comment about it during the primaries. They dismissed
it by their actions as a legitimate, but now that the mainstream media has picked it up,
they're like, okay. Now that ABC and CNN are asking me about it, it's now legitimate. So
it isn't about respecting Tara Reade.
It isn't about respecting women. It's about who are you running against? If you're running
against a Republican, all of a sudden it's a legitimate question that the entire media
will completely flip on and go from illegitimate to legitimate. But if you're running as a
progressive, who cares? We're never gonna cover it.
It is what it is. And we're not gonna respond to it and we don't respect Tara Reade or women
or anything else as long as we're running against the progressive. That's the facts
of what happened here and they are absolutely indisputable