Sunday School 4/14/19

Let's listen in as George Stephanopoulos and Chris Wallace try and interview Sarah Sanders, shall we?

On This Week, the questions started with the threat by the president to send migrants to sanctuary cities. This was previously suggested and according to reports, was determined to be illegal, but that's not stopping the rhetoric or the planning, it seems.

Look, this is an option on the table... we've talked about a number of different things over the last two years that we'd love to see happen... If Democrats would step up and help the president fix the laws, this all could go away, we wouldn't be having this discussion, and that would be the best thing for the country...

George pressed her on the legality question, something that former DHS Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen had addressed, and wondered how they can continue to push the idea. Sanders first said it wasn't logistically feasible, but then completely ignored that it was determined to be illegal.

The president heard the idea, he likes it so - well, we're looking to see if there are options that make it possible and going a full and thorough and extensive review. The president likes the idea and Democrats have said they want these individual into their communities so let's see if it works and everybody gets a win out of it. 

When George wondered why the president even likes the idea, since it might encourage even more immigrants, and they'd be harder to track down once the set up roots in communities across the country, Sanders clarified that the president's priority is stopping illegal immigration in the first place, but the Dems are to blame.

They'd rather spend all of their time attacking the president and -- on these baseless and taxpayer funded investigations instead of doing what they were elected to do, and that's actually solve problems.  

Sanders took offense to debunked stories that the president had allegedly offered a pardon to folks  if they closed the border, which was reported by CNN and the NY Times.

After saying she'd take the word of the president vs. CNN or the Times, she went on to say

...it's an unprecedented amount of negative coverage that not only them but a number of other outlets spend over 90% of the coverage about this president is negative... the country is doing extremely well yet if you looked at the media and the coverage you would think the whole place is falling apart. I think that is a real problem and certainly something the president's going to continue to call out. 

On Fox News Sunday  things were about the same - similar questions, similar answers, so I'll only show part of this interview as well.

Wallace asked about a tweet the president sent, shown below.

Was the president suggesting Congress doesn't have the right to see the report? 

No, that's not what he's saying. The president has been clear he wants transparency throughout the process, but the president is 100% right. One they get the report, and see what the summary has already laid out that there was no collusion, there is no obstruction it is time to move on. They don't get a second chance and trying to re-investigate the president after two years and millions and millions of taxpayer dollars wasted... It's something that Democrats used as an excuse for why they lost an election.

Wallace wondered how the administration would deal with some evidence that will come out that's damaging to the president.

I don't think it's going to be damaging to the president because the entire purpose of the investigation was whether or not there was collusion. Mueller was crystal clear in the fact that there was no collusion, not just between the president but any American, they couldn't find anything. They couldn't make a determination which is basically Mueller's way legally of saying we can't find anything...and so, we consider this to be case closed. That there was no collusion, there was no obstruction which I don't know how you can interpret that any other way than total exoneration.

I think it's absolutely absurd that Democrats are going to continue to push this false narrative that there was somehow wrongdoing on behalf of the president. He won because he was the better candidate with a better message, a better vision and he simply outworked his opponent.  I mean, it's just absolutely insane that they're going to continue to push this.

On the president's repeated comments about loving WikiLeaks while on the campaign trail and now claiming to know "nothing about WikiLeaks," Wallace asked about the inconsistency; here's the response from Sanders:

Look, clearly, the president was making a joke during the 2016 campaign. Certainly, we take this serious. In fact, our administration is the only one that's done anything about it... We're the only ones that have taken this whole process seriously, and actually doing something to solve the problem.

On the president tweeting images of the Twin Towers collapsing in response to Rep. Ilhan Omar's ill-chosen and widely taken out of context comments talking about every Muslim being suspect because some Muslims attacked the US on 9/11, Wallace asked why the president was comfortable tweeting out 43 seconds of the imagery, and if he was at all worried about inciting violence against Muslims generally or Omar specifically.

Certainly, nothing could be further from the truth. The president is not trying to incite violence against anybody. He's actually speaking out against it. The question is, why isn't the congresswoman, why is she brushing this off dismissively? She continues to make anti-Semitic comments over and over again, and Democrats refused to call her out for it. If she continues to do it, the president will continue to call her out by name and he's not going to be ashamed nor should he be. The only shame I see in this is that Democrats and others aren't standing up and taking the same -- hard line that the president is...

That in the not too distant past, a Trump supporter sent bombs to medial outlets, and given that in the even more recent past, Rep. Omar (and other women of color in the House) have been threatened, it's interesting to see not only the full denial on incitement, but the astonishing statement that the president is speaking out against it. 

Finally on the question of whether Trump will tell the IRS not to release his taxes, here's the response.

We'll have to see what happens on that front. But the president has been clear. The issue has even been litigated. We went through it in 2016. 

Huh?  This has been litigated?  Mick Mulvaney said the same thing, but he's also wrong. There's been no 'litigation' on this issue -- Trump was elected without releasing them. all the while lying about the rule that you can't release your taxes while you're under audit, which the IRS has repeatedly said is not true. Sanders went on to say

Chris, I don't think Congress, particularly not this group of Congressmen and women, are smart enough to look through the thousands of pages that I would assume that president Trump's taxes will be. My guess is most of them don't do their own taxes and I certainly don't trust them to look through the decades of success that the president has and determine anything.

Mull that last part over, and I'll see you around campus.