I just got through watching the interview that Martha Radditz did with the Liar (“I didn’t give questions to Hillary”) still known as the DNC Chair Donna Brazile. If one ever thought that the Democrats want to make victims out of everyone, you gotta either read the transcript from ABC (after the jump)or watch this clip. She was also set up well by the ABC intro stating “Did the Kremlin want Trump in the White House?” – Democrats with bylines writ large. EVERYTHING has been thrown against the wall hoping that someone would stick – theft, hack, won’t talk to the CONTENT of the emails, disinformation, the media, Podesta falling for a phishing attempt (“click here”), a bad candidate, FBI Director Comey, won’t talk about the Clinton organizations, attacking the Constitution (the Electoral College); you name it, they’re on it for delegitimizing this election. Except saying “We lost”. 2000 all over again.
So, can we say this is also Fake News by innuendo? Is the MSM, Facebook, Twitter, et al going to employ any Conservative third-party agencies to help curate “fake news”?
After all, Brazile did validate many conservatives’ thoughts as to what this is all about – “The election is — was tainted by this intrusion”.
I also dryly note that the RNC’s response to this was “yes, we got attacked as well – we stopped them dead. Next question please…”. And remember that it was US Senator Ted “The Swimmer” Kennedy that actively reached out to the Kremlin during the Reagan election to see if they would “help” him AND to their wailing about “foreign involvement in our election”, I don’t hear any ofthe Democrats talking about their operatives actively interfering with foreign elections – as they did in Israel in the latest Netanyahu election.
I would put the video of this (ABC alREADY has the interview with James Woolsley (former CIA Director under Bush) up but not Brazile. Too bad as the transcript just DOESN’T get the nuances of Brazile voice tremors and pleadings. If I get it later, I’ll updated this.
Rough Transcript (emphasis mine):
THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT FOR ‘THIS WEEK’ on December 18, 2016 and it will be updated.
ANNOUNCER: Starting right now on THIS WEEK WITH MARTHA RADDATZ, red alert…
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BARACK OBAMA, PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES: The message will be directly received by the Russians.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: President Obama promising retaliation against Russia.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: We need to take action and we will.
(END VIDEO CLIP)ANNOUNCER: The president-elect…
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP (R), PRESIDENT-ELECT OF THE UNITED STATES: They have no idea if it’s Russia or China.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: (INAUDIBLE) to clash with the intelligence community.
Did the Kremlin want Trump in the White House?
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
OBAMA: Not much happens in Russia without Vladimir Putin.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ANNOUNCER: After unprecedented foreign interference, is the heart of our democracy under attack?
This morning, complete coverage. Our exclusive with DNC Chair Donna Brazile.
How is the party working to recover after those devastating hacks?
And the former CIA director advising President-elect Trump.
Plus, we’re live in Moscow with Putin’s close allies.
What’s the Kremlin’s next move?
Full insights, analysis and more, from our team around the globe.
From ABC News, it’s THIS WEEK.
Here now, co-anchor Martha Raddatz.
MARTHA RADDATZ, ABC HOST: Good morning.
This week, a nightmare for American democracy. The nation’s intelligence agencies, the White House claiming the worst — that Russia not only hacked Campaign 2016, but tried to influence the outcome of the election and that the hacks were directed from the heart of the Kremlin, the office of President Vladimir Putin himself.
It is extraordinary to contemplate among the pressing questions this morning, does Trump even believe Russia was behind the hack?
Can the country unify?
How will America respond?
And with a little over a month from President-elect Trump’s inauguration, was his victory due, in part, to Putin’s audacious plot?
At President Obama’s final news conference of the year, he left no doubt the Kremlin’s fingerprints were all over Election 2016.
…
RADDATZ: Let’s take that straight to Donna Brazile, the chair of the Democratic National Committee, which took the brunt of Russia’s cyber hacks.
Donna, your party was hacked, some of your e-mails were included in that.
Do you buy the president’s argument or do you think he let Democrats down by not taking a stronger approach?
DONNA BRAZILE, INTERIM CHAIR, DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE: Well, first of all, I’m gratified that after seven months, when it was confirmed by our side with security experts, as well as the FBI, that everyone is now taking it seriously.
This was a very intrusive process. The president’s party was hacked, not the Democratic Party, the president. He is a Democrat. His party was hacked.
The e-mails were weaponized. The release of stolen, hacked e-mails caused a lot of confusion and, of course, it disrupted our daily campaign lives.
And what, Obama and the Democrats haven’t weaponized our own government against conservatives? Remember, DHS released, shortly after Obama became President, that white middled-aged Christians were a prime target for being domestic terrorists. And the allegations have been found to be true in court that the IRS deliberately targeted TEA Party and other conservative groups.
RADDATZ: So did he let Democrats down by not taking a stronger approach as it was happening?
BRAZILE: I think the Obama administration, the FBI, the various other federal agencies, they informed us. They told us what was happening. We knew as of May.
But in terms of helping us to fight — we were fighting foreign adversary in a cyber space. The Democratic National Committee, we were no match. And yet we fought constantly.
Hey deary, EVERYONE is getting hacked all the time – you’re no different than anyone.
That’s why I think it’s important that Congress takes a very open approach to looking at what happened, how it evolved, what was Russia’s motives.
RADDATZ: You’re sending a letter to Congress?
BRAZILE: Yes. The Democratic Party would like to see an open, independent, bipartisan investigation.
RADDATZ: President Obama also said Friday that the cyber attacks stopped after he warned Putin at an international conference in September. You’ve been briefed on the party’s computer system.
Is that right, they stopped?
BRAZILE: No, they did not stop. They — they came after us absolutely every day until the end of the election. They tried to hack into our system repeatedly. We put up the very best cyber security — what I call infrastructure — to stop them, but they constantly — they came after us.
Heh! So much for the Russians being part of the world that Obama just proclaimed that the US is more powerful and respected in the world than ever
RADDATZ: So why do you think the president would say that?
BRAZILE: Look, I think the president is right to call for a full investigation. Every federal agency involved should be — should put everything on the table, and the Democratic Party will put everything on the table. They came after us daily, hourly. And there were times when we thought they would penetrate us and we would have another breach. But we had a great…
RADDATZ: Do you think the president didn’t know they were continuing?
You said they were continuing.
BRAZILE: No, when I saw the president, I was a little disappointed that, you know — we were under constant attack. We never felt comfortable. We didn’t know what was coming next. And, you know, this is not just about computers. This is harassment of individuals, it’s harassment of our candidates, harassment of our donors. We had stolen information, personal information. People were personally harassed.
RADDATZ: So are you disappointed in the president’s response?
BRAZILE: I am disappointed that we went through this process. The country went through this process…
RADDATZ: But are you disappointed in his response?
BRAZILE: You know, Martha, I don’t — this was — we were attacked by a foreign adversary. And I think it’s the responsibility of the government to help individual citizens as well as institutions, nonprofits, corporations, to protect us, to help protect…
Right. And this is the same Government that can’t protect the OMB and hackers got millions of records, or millions from the Pentagon, or….it’s been a calvacade of breakins – but true to form, this Progressive screams “SAVE ME, my government”?
Next time, up your own defenses, lady.
RADDATZ: So how do know think the FBI should have handled it?
The New York Times reported this week that the FBI reached out to the DNC starting September 2015.
BRAZILE: They reached out. It’s like going to Best Buy and you get the Geek Squad. And they’re great people by the way. They reached out to our IT vendors. But when they reached us, meaning senior Democratic officials, by then it was, you know, the Russians had been involved for a long time.
Look, we are had two sitting members of congress — Debbie Wasserman Schultz and Tulsi Gabbard, they are sitting members of congress. Tulsi sits on the armed services. They could have easily have reached them.
RADDATZ: Well, do you bear any responsibility, does the Democratic National Committee bear any responsibility because they weren’t prepared for something like this, or even have a chain of command going from, as you say, the Geek Squad up to more senior leadership.
BRAZILE: There’s no question. I took full responsibility, Martha. I went to the Democratic convention. I spent the entire month of July, August apologizing because of the leaked, stolen emails. I had no idea the extent of the cyber intrusion.
No one — I didn’t grow up knowing about Fancy Bear and these other Russian actors. But once I found out, we not only initiated a full and thorough investigation internally, we hired Crowdstrike, the former number three at the FBI. We instituted better cyber management within the party. So we took appropriate steps, not just to protect our infrastructure but to also warn others about what was happening to us in real time. And we also warned the Republicans.
Does she wipe her servers with a cloth or something, too, like Hillary?
RADDATZ: I want to turn to President-Elect Trump. In his response to this latest hack reporting this week, President-Elect Trump tweeted, “Are we talking about the same cyber attack where it was revealed that the head of the DNC illegally gave Hillary the questions to the debate?” Obviously a reference to the charge that you gave the Clinton folks questions in advance of a CNN town hall, and a CNN debate.
BRAZILE: Allegations from stolen hacked emails. And as I have said repeatedly, CNN did not provide me with any questions, nor by the way did you provide me with any questions showing up this morning. But, again, when you think how this information was used, how the stolen hacked emails — my emails were not hacked, by the way. I had a DNC address but my emails were not hacked. John Podesta’s emails were hacked. They were used. They were weaponized for — to sow misinformation and to sow discord between the Clinton and Sanders campaign.
Liar.
Unfortunately, it happened but we should learn from this. This is why the president should tell us more before he leaves office, and also then Congress bears an enormous responsibility as well to inform the American people on this — the involvement of the Russian government in our election process.
RADDATZ: And Donna, given that all you’ve — all you’ve said about this hack, do you think Donald Trump’s win was legitimate?
BRAZILE: You know, I was involved a close election in 2000. And it was an election where we believed that every vote should count, and every voter should matter. At the end of the day, the electors had an obligation to do their job. And George Bush won the election, and Al Gore had the most electoral — I mean, the most popular vote.
Donald Trump used this information in ways to also sow division. I was very disappointed in his repeated usage some of the stolen information. He used it as if he received daily talking points. But that’s politics; it’s behind us. What we should focus on now is how do we protect our country from foreign intrusion? How do we protect and strengthen our democratic institutions? And how do we protect the lives of…
RADDATZ: So, was the election legit?
BRAZILE: The election is — was tainted by this intrusion, but…
RADDATZ: Would Hillary Clinton have own without it? Do you think?
BRAZILE: You know, I’m not going to sugarcoat what happened on Election Day. We, the Democratic Party has a lot of things that we have to do. Donald Trump cracked the blue wall, OK? He cracked the blue wall. We had a blue wall. We should’ve maintained it. We should’ve kept it. There’s no question that having a foreign adversary, a foe, interfere and to use hacked stolen emails and weaponize them against the Democrats, not the Republicans, not Trump, but against Hillary Clinton and the Democratic Party, the president’s party, we should be outraged by it. I know I’m still outraged by it. But I want to make sure that this never happens again, because this country deserves to have the kind of cyber security experts involved to make sure that our homeland is protected at every stage.
RADDATZ: Thanks very much, Donna.
BRAZILE: Thank you, ma’am.