CLAY: The fog of misinformation — the fog of disinformation, I would say, Buck — outright lies, continues to emanate surrounding Donald Trump based on his interview with us from Tuesday. And it’s been expanded to include many Republicans. And the argument out there — and, Buck, this is crazy. The argument out there that was still being made on Sunday is that many Republicans are praising Vladimir Putin and big fans of Russia when the reality is that’s almost a nonexistent position anywhere, irrespective of political party. But I want to play these two clips for you guys from over the weekend. First, CBS’ John Dickerson says that when Trump said that… Well, just listen to what the genius comments in his analysis and how dishonest it is. Listen to this.
BUCK: Clay —
CLAY: That’s a lie. It’s just such a lie.
BUCK: That’s Grade A, 101, epitome of fake news. It would be as though — and people can, please, go back. It’s up at ClayandBuck.com. Go back to the podcast of it. Listen to the actual interview we did that apparently melted the internet for about, well…
CLAY: It’s still going a week later.
BUCK: Yeah. We were down in Mar-a-Lago. Listen to what he’s saying in context. Within a couple of lines of this Trump says, “This never would have happened when I was president,” because he would have stopped it, because obviously he opposes it. That’s the implication of what he’s saying. He went on at CPAC. I was at CPAC this weekend holding up the Clay and Buck flag for us, and Trump was very clearly opposed to what Putin is doing here.
Clay, if you said… A person could make the argument that, “So-and-so has made a brilliant maneuver here, but I disagree with that,” and they kept out the “but I disagree with that,” that’s just effectively a lie, right? This is a lie of omission. This is dishonesty. Taking that line from a long… We spent an hour with him talking and we spent about a solid 10 or 12 minutes on just Ukraine. They’re lying to the country about the former president.
CLAY: And they’re using our audio in the process, and when he says, “Oh, it’s wonderful,” that is sarcasm. I can’t believe I… When he says, “Oh, it’s wonderful,” that is sarcasm, and I’ll just give you an example. If you got a call today and somebody said, “Hey, your kid’s in the principal’s office because he got in a fight and he’s suspended and you need to leave work right now and go pick him up,” you might respond by saying, “Oh, that’s wonderful.”
It wouldn’t mean that you were excited about it. Some of you out there for the holidays, if you’re wife comes in and she says, “Hey,” by the way, love my mother-in-law, “my mom is coming and she’s gonna stay with us the for two weeks,” you might respond, “Oh, wonderful,” not meaning that you’re excited about it, all right? So that’s a lie. And, Buck, it’s a lie. That’s an essay that was written, right?
That’s CBS, dishonest, total fake news written — and that wasn’t the only part. Chuck Schumer came out. I saw where Hillary Clinton just said this morning on MSNBC, continuing the lie about Republicans praising Putin. Here is Chuck Schumer saying Donald Trump is despicable for praising that thug Putin. Listen.
BUCK: Let’s take a moment to understand. Why are they going to such lengths, Clay? There’s a war in Ukraine. Trump is not president. Trump is not the commander-in-chief right now. So what is this all about? They’re creating a narrative that is at a minimum one of distraction, right, because what is the immediate implication? Joe Biden has been pounded on this last week, when we’re looking at, “Would this happen under Trump?” Joe Biden’s been in office a year. Russia has already invaded Ukraine.
Trump is in office four years, no invasion of Ukraine, no invasion of anywhere by Russia in its territory in Europe and Trump fighting back actually pretty aggressively against Russian paramilitaries in Syria, blew up 150 to 200 of them in the desert when they were threatening Kurdish allies in the fight against ISIS. So why are they doing this? Because the alternative is the obvious recognition that anybody would have that this is occurring while Biden is president.
Because Putin realizes Democrats are weak, don’t live in reality, oppose fossil fuels ’cause they worship this weird climate change ideology — and Biden’s national security team is a bunch of consensus-driven, latte drinkers who want to hang out in Brussels and not people that actually want to or know how to play the game across the chessboard from Vladimir Putin effectively. So Trump becomes the bad guy and is a distraction from the obvious recognition of Joe Biden’s a buffoon. Of course, this happens on his watch.
CLAY: I think that’s well said. And, by the way, it’s also not registering with the American public. I thought this was significant over the weekend. I think this came out on Friday or Saturday. I’m not sure which one. A Harvard-Harris poll, 62% of Americans believe that Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine if Donald Trump was still president. Sixty-two percent — and, by the way, a high percentage of Democrats (I think it was like 37% of Democrats) even believe that. And, Buck, 59% of Americans believe that one reason Putin invaded Ukraine was because Joe Biden is weak. Those are big percentages, and that’s, to your point, Democrats are trying to hide what the real story is here, which is their leader is failing, and that’s why the Ukraine situation happened. And if Trump were there, it wouldn’t have.
CLAY: Yes.
BUCK: We’ve seen pathetic propaganda from Democrat regimes, or Democrat mouthpieces in the past. One of my favorites — remember this, Clay? — was back in the first year of the Trump presidency. Do you remember what they were calling the booming economy? “The Obama economy.” Eighteen months into the Trump presidency, the Obama economy. Two years in, by about year two and a half, Year Three of the Trump administration, “the Obama economy” thing became too silly for anyone to say it out loud.
They were pushing that for the first two years across the board. We’re at the same level here. Biden is the commander-in-chief. He’s been there for a year. This has happened on his watch, and people can look at some of the very clear decision-making. Nord Stream 2. Fossil fuel decisions. They’re even trying to say that Trump weakened NATO! Facts first, folks.
I think, is that a CNN thing I just said? Oh, gosh. Facts. Let’s just say facts! NATO was stronger with greater U.S. troop deployment to NATO after the Trump presidency than before the Trump presidency and NATO allies were spending more in their own defense and taking it more seriously after the Trump presidency than… Those are facts. That’s not even up for dispute.
CLAY: This reminds me, too, of the Paul Krugmans of the world in the New York Times who tried to get the idea of a “Biden Boom.” Remember, like, almost immediately Biden comes into the office, and they tried to say all the time, “Oh, it’s about the Biden Boom, the Biden Boom, the Biden Boom,” and then we hit 7.5% inflation and people are actually making less money in real dollars when you look at that inflation rate relative to what their overall increase in wages are, and guess what, Buck? The Biden Boom, it vanished in a heartbeat. I haven’t seen that, but they tried to get that phrase out there rolling.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
HILLARY: I do think it’s important to support, uh, both the Ukrainian military and then, uh, — depending upon what happens and how quickly events unfold — uh, supporting those who are putting up resistance. But I — I want to make uh — another point, which is uh, that we have to also make sure that within our own country, uh, we are calling out those people who are, uh, giving aid and comfort to Vladimir Putin, who are talking about what a genius he is, what a smart move it is, uh, who are, unfortunately, uh, being broadcast, uh, by Russian, uh, media, uh, not only inside Russia but in Europe to demonstrate, uh, the division within our own country.
CLAY: It isn’t working, but it is a sign of how desperate they are, and I think it’s important for everybody out there listening, if you didn’t listen to our interview with Donald Trump on Tuesday. It’s up on the podcast. You can go see it for yourself. But, Buck, it is so illustrative of how people don’t even bother to listen to an entire interview. They pull 30 or 45 seconds of a clip — like we just saw CBS do, like we just saw Hillary Clinton try to do — in order to distract everyone from the failures of the Biden administration.
And again, the positive here is I think the vast majority of the American public are seeing through it. When you hear 62% — this the-Harvard-Harris poll — of Americans believe as you and I do and I think most of our listeners do, that if Donald Trump were in office, that Vladimir Putin wouldn’t have invaded Ukraine and that 59% of them on top of that believe one reason he did so is because of Biden’s weakness, that’s how desperate they are to try to attach this to Trump and find another excuse.
BUCK: Here’s a quick foreign policy review of the Trump administration for everybody — and you know this, but I think it’s important to hear it because you won’t hear it anywhere else, really, in the media. Trump was right on China. Trump was right on renegotiating NAFTA, the U.S.-Mexico-Canada trade agreement. Trump was right on not starting any new wars. Trump was right on accelerating the campaign to end ISIS and take back Raqqah. You go down the list of foreign policy successes.
Okay, he didn’t solve North Korea single-handedly, which no administration has made any real progress on in over 30 years. But, okay, there was no downside to the talk. We were told, “Oh, it’s gonna end…” Actually, the missiles stopped being fired by North Korea. You know they just saw yesterday, at least there was reporting on it, Clay? It looks like North Korea might have fired off another missile just to sort of show everybody what’s what.
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