CNN political commentator Rick Santorum has offered a rather unique defense of President Trump’s misrepresentations on all things Russia-related: The president lies about everything, so what’s the big deal when he lies about Russia?
At the start of Wednesday’s much-anticipated House Oversight Committee hearing, former Trump attorney and “fixer” Michael Cohen labeled the president a “conman” who has repeatedly lied about his communications with Russia and WikiLeaks. Cohen further speculated that Special Counsel Robert Mueller likely has evidence showing Trump and longtime adviser Roger Stone spoke in advance about a WikiLeaks email dump during the 2016 election campaign.
Hours after the hearing, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper asked Santorum to elaborate on an earlier debate he’d had with CNN political analyst and Watergate legend Carl Bernstein.
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“Questioning why people in the Trump orbit continue to lie about Russia. I mean, does it—is there an explanation for you on this?” Cooper asked. “Just the number of lies related to Russia, Senator?”
The former GOP presidential candidate replied that the point he was trying to make to Bernstein was that “the president doesn't tell the truth about a lot of things fairly consistently.” Therefore, the “fact that he's not telling the truth about Russia fairly consistently, at least in the eyes of people around here, why is that any different?”
“I mean, it's not like he's doing something out of character with the Russia investigation that he's not doing in any other areas,” Santorum continued. “So that's—so you make the point, oh, he lies about Russia all time. Well, according to what I hear on this roundtable and the network, he lies about everything all the time!”
CNN legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin seemed dumbstruck by Santorum’s logic, asking the former Pennsylvania senator, “Is that really the best defense you can come up with?”
As Santorum stammered, Toobin mockingly exclaimed: “Well, he lies about everything, your honor!”
The Trump-supporting pundit shot back that he’s not saying any of Trump’s lying is good, it’s just that the president is “not acting differently” when he doesn’t tell the truth on Russia-related topics.
Bernstein, meanwhile, countered that there is a “real specificity to his lying on Russia” and that he makes very careful denials, noting that this was the difference between Trump’s everyday lies and his Russian ones.
