>> Ted Cruz was on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd, and he decided to resurrect an already
debunked conspiracy theory about Ukraine.
In fact, the lie was so ridiculous that producers can be heard laughing in the background.
Take a look.
>> You believe Ukraine meddled in the American election in 2016?
>> I do, and I think there's considerable evidence.
>> You do?
>> Yes, and Chuck, let me say- >> Senator, this sorta strikes me as odd because
you went through a primary campaign with this president.
He launched a birtherism campaign against you.
He went after your faith.
He threatened to, quote, spill the beans about your wife about something.
He pushed a National Enquirer story, which we now know, he had a real relationship with
the editors at the National Enquirer.
No but Senator, let me ask you this.
Is it not possible that this president is capable of creating a false narrative about
somebody in order to help him politically?
>> I do like that follow up by Chuck Todd.
You got unmanned by Donald Trump.
You're really gonna defend him and lie for him on television right now?
>> Right, now remember, there's not a sensible reason that he's doing it.
He's saying, look, you're backing a conspiracy theory by the president.
Remember all the conspiracy theories he did about you, so you of all people would know
that Donald Trump is perfectly capable of coming up with wild, insane conspiracy theories
like, your dad killing JFK.
That was a theory that Trump pushed.
And then, Cruz says, well, I appreciate you bringing up that garbage.
But remember, that was garbage that Trump did against you.
So now when you back up his garbage about how Ukraine interfered with an election that
no American Intelligence Official believes.
In fact, American intelligence officials testified in these hearings, saying it is Russian propaganda
and anyone who repeats it is helping the Russian state do propaganda in America.
We know that definitively because of US intelligence.
And yet you do it on national television and you spread that garbage.
It's the least that anyone could do to ask you that follow up question and credit to
Chuck Todd, cuz it is an excellent follow up question.
>> Absolutely and he's not the only one making that point.
In fact, a Republican strategist Susan Del Percio says the following, how shameless they
can be in defense of a man who not only would never defend them, but a man, Trump, who viciously
attacked Cruz's wife, viciously attacked his father and viciously accused him of having
an affair with five different women.
Which is funny every time I hear that.
>> Yeah, it's like the best accusation Ted Cruz's ever had.
>> He's like five women, five women in my lifetime be attracted to me.
I don't think so.
He's like, but keep spreading that rumor.
>> So even though Republicans like Senator Kennedy keep bringing up this Ukrainian conspiracy
theory, I just wanna make sure that people are armed with the truth on what's really
going on.
Because they keep citing articles like, there was an article in Political or in The Economist,
indicating that Ukraine did in fact meddle in our elections.
But if you go back and you actually read those articles, you'll notice that they don't actually
back up what Republicans are saying.
In fact, PolitiFact caught up with Senator Kennedy after he made his accusations about
Ukraine, and they asked him to send the articles that he was referring to in various interviews,
the Economist and Politico.
And so he sent them eight links.
PolitiFact looked into every single one of those links and not a single one of them actually
backed up what Senator Kennedy was saying.
>> No!
>> Right.
>> Republicans making things up?
>> Look, we know that- >> We know that.
>> But the whole point of doing this show is to give you guys the truth and the facts
so when you come across these ridiculous conspiracy theories, you can debunk them yourselves.
So just going back to what Kennedy had said, Russia was very aggressive, and they're much
more sophisticated.
But the fact that Russia was so aggressive does not exclude the fact that former President
Poroshenko, former President of Ukraine, actively worked for Secretary Clinton.
Now that is not true, not true at all.
Did Poroshenko prefer Hillary Clinton to get elected over Donald Trump?
Yes, because Hillary Clinton was much more aggressive against Russia, whereas Donald
Trump during the election was making excuses for Russia left and right.
Now, let's talk about what we found through PolitiFact.
So news coverage shows Ukrainians preferred Hillary Clinton because she was tough on Russia.
However, the articles Republican lawmakers refer to don't show a vast top down approach
order to boost Clinton.
So look, it's one thing to have politicians in various countries prefer specific candidates
or maybe they write op-eds preferring this specific candidate.
But is there an orchestrated top down campaign to meddle in US elections in order to get
that candidate elected?
And in the case of Ukraine, there was not, plain and simple.
>> So easy to understand.
For example, Bernie Sanders might like Evo Morales in Bolivia.
But did he help him in his election in a way that interfered with their electoral process?
Of course not, so, that's all the difference in the world.
So, if for example, Vladimir Putin said, man, I really like Trump over Hillary Clinton because
Trump will do anything I say, either because I own him or he's an idiot.
It doesn't matter, but I like him, but then he doesn't do anything else.
And there is the trolls, the bots, the fake ads, and all the things that they did, by
the way, the attempt to get into the voter rolls also from Russia.
If they don't do any of that, then who cares what Putin thinks.
Okay, Putin wants Trump instead of Hillary Clinton, that's not interesting.
His actions in interfering with the election is what's important, and it doesn't look like
there is any evidence of that from Ukraine, and there is overwhelming evidence of that
from Russia.
>> Just a tiny bit more.
Again, this is from PolitiFact.
Republicans frequently mention a 2017 Politico article, which focused on the work of a Democratic
political contractor who tried to dig up dirt on Trump and his advisers.
We vetted and found that the GOP has used its findings selectively.
So let's get a little more specific.
The article itself cautions that the actions of the Ukrainians to oppose Trump were not
as expansive or as centrally controlled as the election interference by Russia.
Those nuances though, have been ignored by Trump allies who have chosen to play up the
Ukrainian efforts outlined in the article rather than the more extensively documented
Russian meddling.
>> And remember guys, all the intelligence folks that are testifying are people in the
Trump Administration.
So it's not like we're going back to Jimmy Carter's people and they're saying, wow, look
we're out of power but it looks like to us the Russians meddle in this election cause
we don't like Trump.
No, it's the entire intelligence community.
And they're currently working under Trump and have been for three years.
And they all agreed, the Russians definitely meddled in our elections and the Ukrainees
definitely didn't.
Nonetheless, these Republicans, including Ted Cruz, going around going, hey, look man,
if I just say it enough, maybe this just muddies the waters enough that we can get all of our
Republicans and maybe some independents to go, I don't know.
You know what's that called?
It's called manufacturing doubt, okay?
And so, it's an old trick that the tobacco companies did first.
Well some doctors say cigarettes are bad for your health, but other doctors that we paid
off say that it's actually good for your health.
I guess we'll never know.
Keep on smoking cigarettes.
Then the oil companies did it.
Some people say climate change is real and some people say it isn't.
I guess we'll never know.
Let's keep drilling and getting oil, so I can keep making money.
And now the Republicans have adopted it as their central tactic, because they don't have
the truth on their side.
So they go maybe it was the Russians, maybe it was Ukraine, I guess we'll never know,
let's just leave it alone and not impeach Trump.
>> And one final point that I've been dying to make, look, Donald Trump keeps saying and
Republicans parrot this point, that the reason why he held up that military aid was because
he was concerned about corruption in Ukraine and he did not want to release that money
until that corruption was rooted out.
Okay, fair enough.
If that were true, why wouldn't he go to our intelligence community to do the proper investigation
into the Biden's if he genuinely thought there was an issue with the Biden's?
Why would he go to a country that he claims is devastatingly corrupt to do the investigation
into the Biden's?
Come on?
>> And why wouldn't you go to your normal secretary of state and the diplomats, instead
you bring in Rudy Giuliani, my secretary of my bro, too, hat's not a thing, okay?
You can't ask your personal lawyer to do State Department diplomacy for you, you would do
the State Department and you would do diplomacy if you had a real issue.
If you don't have a real issue and you're just trying to get dirt on your political
opponent, you send in your personal lawyer slash goon to go outside of the process, and
figure truth doesn't matter anyway.
I'll get all the Republican politicians to lick my boots and lie for me when I'm in trouble,
when that's exactly what's happened.