On Thursday, Republican Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz appeared on MSNBC and told host Hallie Jackson to stop the misrepresentation of facts.
Actually, that’s a great message for a whole lot of people.
Hallie was pinching Matt on the testimony of William Taylor, acting ambassador to Ukraine. Only some of Bill’s impeachment-related reveal’s been made public, and Hallie wanted to know more:
“[A]bout the substance of this, Congressman — because I haven’t heard you say anything since Bill Taylor testified — yes or no, is it okay for any politician to trade military aid for political favors?”
But Matt wasn’t there for the hearing, so he was all clammed up:
“Look, I’m not going to get into the specifics of the Taylor deposition because I wasn’t present for it. The lead-in to your question was, ‘I want to talk about Bill Taylor’s deposition.’”
Hallie pressed, “Do you think it’s appropriate?”
Matt made it clear — he doesn’t believe President Trump tried to strong-arm Ukraine into investigating Joe Biden by withholding military aid:
“I do not believe it would be appropriate for any politician to link military aid to assistance in a future election. No. And I also don’t think that’s what the President did.”
The congressman wanted to point out — the one thing we do know is Ukraine meddled in 2016 (and if so, it wasn’t in Trump’s favor):
“It was a Ukrainian court that ruled that the Ukraine impermissibly interfered in the (2016) U.S. election, and that is a sufficient basis for the President to ask for cooperation with the Attorney General on that matter.”
But Katie didn’t wanna talk about that, ’cause it isn’t proven. Trump aggressing Biden, however…
“[W]hat you are saying is significant — not about the piece about Ukraine in 2016, because that is not a proven theory –“
Matt interrupted:
“Well, wait — it was a court order in Ukraine. But you just keep blowing through these things like they’re facts, but they’re not.”
Then he made a T-shirt:
“[S]top mischaracterizing stuff.”
He told Hallie he was having to work extra hard to have the conversation:
“I have to fact-check you in real time.”
The MSNBC host is a fast talker, and the whole exchange was riddled with words, words, words, cranked out as from a gatlin gun with hair.
But Matt told her it’s all foolishness:
“You’re playing the game here, Hallie. You’re playing the game where they selectively leak stuff that is not subject to cross examination, rigorous review, check against documents and timelines. And by the way, when they had to do this in open, in the Russian investigation, with Mueller, with Lewindowski, Democrats looked terrible. And now they’re trying to do things in secret so we can have interviews like this, so that you can cherry-pick elements of leaked testimony, and then ask me about them when I wasn’t in there, you didn’t see the testimony, and more importantly, we’re unable to see how those statements hold up against cross examination.”
The representative laid out what he believes to be the Dems’ MO. Basically, they’re playing Prison Rules, and it’s all a lunge for redemption after the humiliating defeat of goofy Russia Mania:
“[W]hen the Speaker of the House won’t adopt rules, then it creates an environment where the Democrats just sort of make it up as they go along — kick some committees out, let some committees in, and it’s all because they wanna reshuffle the legislative deck, because they’re humiliated that they lost the Russia investigation unequivocally with the American people. Adam Schiff lied to the American people when he said he had more than circumstantial evidence that President Trump was engaged in a criminal conspiracy with Russia…”
Matt said something similar to Tucker Carlson Thursday — there are no rules(here).
