A Washington Post reporter with knowledge of a bombshell whistleblower complaint made against President Donald Trump called into “The View” this week to break down the details of the report.
Co-host Meghan McCain seemed to have trouble grasping the seriousness of the matter, however.
“The View” co-host Meghan McCain (left) pressed Washington Post reporter Shane Harris (right) on why allegations that President Donald Trump committed serious misconduct in making a secret promise to a foreign leader is anything worse than some of President Obama’s actions with foreign leaders. (Photo: The View / video screenshot)
The scandal, first reported by The Post, involves Trump and an unidentified foreign leader — now speculated by WaPo reporting to be Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky — to whom the president allegedly made troubling promises to during a phone conversation. Two former U.S. officials told the outlet that an intelligence official was so alarmed by what was said that they reported it to the inspector general for national intelligence, a sort of internal watchdog over national intelligence.
“Normally what happens is the inspector general then tells Congress,” WaPo reporter Shane Harris explained. ‘But we understand Trump administration officials blocked them from doing that.”
Harris further broke down why the claims are so explosive after McCain drew comparisons to a similar incident involving former President Barack Obama.
“We’ve heard presidents promise things to foreign leaders before,” McCain began, “like President (Barack) Obama was caught on a hot mic telling then-Russian president (Dmitry) Medvedev he would ‘have more flexibility’ after the election. Can you tell viewers why there’s a difference between that and this?”
Harris explained that the discussion between Obama and Medvedev was markedly different from Trump’s exchange with the foreign leader.
“When we saw that conversation with Obama, you’re kind of seeing the horse trading and the deal making,” he said.
Harris continued: “While we do not know what the substance was or the details of the conversation with Trump and this leader, it was enough that this fairly experienced intelligence official, we think, looked at it and said, this isn’t just normal negotiating. This isn’t kind of the give and take and the back-and-forth. There is something happening here that rises to the level of some kind of abuse, and the inspector general looked at it and found that at least under the law, that was a credible allegation.”
McCain, who sticks up for Trump from time to time, further pressed Harris on the issue and questioned if WaPo had published the report prematurely in an effort to smear the president.
“People have been asking me today, like, why didn’t you wait and find out the information like the substance of the call was?” Harris replied. “We know there was an allegation for some days, [and] already it was a huge story … and members of Congress, including Adam Schiff, have been implying it was deduced the president was involved and knowing the president himself was the subject of this complaint, and the nature of it, a communication with a foreign leader, that that was significant enough to report and let the American people know about.”
McCain’s line of questioning didn’t go over well with fans, however, who implied that she wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed.
“Use small words pal. She’s not that bright,” one Twitter user wrote.
“And she’s still confused,” another chimed in.
“He might as well be talking to the wall behind her, thus the blank look on her face, wrote another.
Others viewers took issue with the fact that she mentioned Obama.
“Whenever anyone brings up past Republicans @MeghanMcCain shouts ‘they’re not in office now, stay present’ but oh how she loves to start deflecting by shouting Obama, Dems, Clinton etc,” one critic noted.
“Which Obama scandal is she thinking of? The great Tan Suit scandal of 2014 or the Grey Poupon scandal of ’09?,” someone else joked.
Watch more in the video below.
