Fox Business Host Maria Bartiromo intended for her eight-minute discussion to be devoted to attacking Sen. Al Franken. Unfortunately for her, the discussion will more likely be remembered for her unintentionally hilarious claim that “there are no allegations” against Donald Trump.
All seemed to go according to Bartiromo’s plan until about 5:30 when she mentioned that Democratic Senator Kirsten Gillibrand had said that Bill Clinton should have resigned after his relationship with intern Monica Lewinsky came to light. It was meant as a partisan threefer: suggesting that Franken should resign, making it the hand of a Democrat and reminding us about Bill Clinton.
Bartiromo’s effort backfired.
Guest Chris Lu, a former adviser to President Barack Obama, correctly pointed out that Gillibrand later clarified that she was looking at Clinton’s conduct under the current political environment. Lu also brought up Roy Moore’s creepy inscription in a teen’s yearbook and Trump’s Access Hollywood tape (in which Trump boasts about grabbing women by the p***y) and questioned how to evaluate the different forms of allegations.
Lu obviously hit one of Bartiromo’s Trumpster nerves.
BARTIROMO: What do you mean, how do you differentiate? … There’s a picture. What do you need to differentiate? … The evidence is clear, right?
LU: The picture’s there but as your own network has reported, there are now, I think eight or nine women who have made allegations against against Roy Moore, there’s probably equal numbers that have made allegations against the president.
Actually, the number is 15 women, on the record, who have spoken out about Trump's sexual abuse, according to MSNBC’s Chris Hayes.
“I’m inclined to believe all of these women’s testimony,” Lu continued, “and I think we need to sort out that, what all of this means. Simply denying it doesn’t absolve you of your responsibility.”
But Bartiromo was stuck on absolving Trump of his responsibility.
BARTIROMO: Just to be clear, there are no allegations against the president.
LU: There are allegations against Donald Trump … from an earlier period of time.
BARTIROMO: He said during the campaign that wasn’t true. In fact, didn’t he say also that all of this will come to light and there will be a lawsuit? … We’re talking about a situation where we have a picture with the guy’s hands on her breasts, I mean… you can’t compare the two, Chris.
LU: I am not absolving that in any way. I’m simply saying so we deny the allegations of those women that have made those claims?
BARTIROMO: I don’t know where that stands. I think this was during the campaign. I mean, you’re comparing something that is apples to oranges, it’s not the same at all.
LU: This is conduct that happened before both of these people were in public office. These things need to be scrutinized and simply saying, “Hey, this didn’t happen.” All these women made it up?
Bartiromo replied by sneering, “This is so typical.”
But Twitter may have gotten the last laugh. Bartiromo was savaged there by a slew of people, including one of her own former colleagues, Gretchen Carlson:
Crazy - uh - and what did u say about me? https://t.co/H1kgQiXKo6
— Gretchen Carlson (@GretchenCarlson) November 18, 2017
Bartiromo reacted not by correcting her error, not by clarifying nor explaining... but by blocking at least two journalists, CNN's Brian Stelter and New York Magazine and Huffington Post writer Yashar Ali.
Uh-huh . . . just as, according to Dana “too much cappuccino” Perino: “there were no terrorist attacks on US soil under George W. Bush.”
It appears Bartiromo is, like Perino, another “lying sack of cute” . . .
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