Fox's Tucker Carlson says Trump's Ukraine call was inappropriate: 'There's no way to spin this"
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Carlson in 2018 (Photo: Wikipedia)
In a sign that the right-wing media's relentless defense of President Donald Trump may be cracking, Fox News host Tucker Carlson published an op-ed with Daily Caller co-founder and publisher Neil Patel zinging Trump for his call with Ukraine's president.
"Donald Trump should not have been on the phone with a foreign head of state encouraging another country to investigate his political opponent, Joe Biden," Carlson and Patel wrote.
"Some Republicans are trying, but there's no way to spin this as a good idea."
Carlson and Patel added, "Like a lot of things Trump does, it was pretty over-the-top. Our leaders' official actions should not be about politics. Those two things need to remain separate.
Once those in control of our government use it to advance their political goals, we become just another of the world's many corrupt countries. America is better than that."
Related - (Ukrainian "Quid Pro Quo" Update):
State Department approves possible $39 million Javelin missile sale to Ukraine
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I still found it astonishing to see Carlson and Patel concede that Trump's conduct on the call with Ukraine's president was wrong, and that there's no way to explain it away.
That line of thinking goes against the talking points from Trump (who says it was a "perfect" phone call) and what the vast majority of his media allies have been saying.
It's also further than most Senate Republicans have gone when asked about Trump's conduct.
Yeah, but just wait, they will also claim nothing impeachable happened.
Good point!
He's probably trying to show that, after all, "he's reasonable"...but ultimately will defend Trump...and say Trump hasn't committed any impeachable offense(s).
Of that there is no doubt whatsoever. Nothing impeachable even if one takes the most negative meaning from the transcript of the phone call.
OTOH, perhaps saying anything critical of Trump is probably significant???
(But there's no way the Dems effort will succeed in removing Trump. from office. The Democratically controlled House will vote to impeach-- but when it goes to the Senate they won't vote to remove him from office. So perhaps the Dem's strategy is to use these proceedings to let the American public know some of the things Trump has done..and what type of person he really is . . . )
Well, here's another possibility: perhaps the Dems goal is not to get him impeached and removed from office (by Congress). Perhapsa, their goal is a bit different than that...
Such are great business man s/
Trump’s Aberdeen Golf Course Posts Loss for Seventh Year in Row
I think I'll go along with the vast number of national security officials who beg to differ with your silly conclusion.
Around 300 former national security officials, diplomats, and ex-White House staff have signed a letter that says President Trump committed "an unconscionable abuse of power" when he attempted to blackmail the president of Ukraine.
On Wednesday, notes from a phone conversation between the two leaders were released to the public and they were disturbing to say the least. During the call, Trump asked Zelensky to investigate his presumed political opponent in the 2020 election, Joe Biden, in exchange for $400 in military aid.
The call showed Trump was willing to put the national security of an ally as well as the United States at risk to gain leverage over a political rival. Soliciting election help from a foreign country is also a criminal act.
And then there were the Atlantic City Casinos he bankrupted:
Trump’s Casinos Couldn’t Make Atlantic City Great Again
The collapse of Trump’s casino empire was as dramatic, if not quite as rapid, as its rise.
Burdened by high-interest debt, disappointing revenue, and over-expansion—by the early '90s Atlantic City boasted the Trump Plaza, Trump Castle, and Trump Taj Mahal—the casinos started going bankrupt. Although Trump boasts that he kept squeezing money out of the casinos until the end, thousands of people lost their jobs and dozens of contractors were forced to accept a fraction of what they were owed .
Today, the Trump Plaza is closed, the Trump Marina Hotel is now the Golden Nugget, and the Trump Taj Mahal (the last property with the president’s name on it) is under new ownership.
CH4P, I voted you up and agree whole heartedly with your assertion/summation of what is known thus far.
After all, the ( Stormy Who ) deflect worked then, continued to work and will work again. The Trump is invincible.
1/100,000,000 s/
"How does it all compare with the competition?" squiggy.
It doesn't. It is the redundancy of the Trump's rivers of rivers that are the only topics. The consistency of ( look at me. look at me. ) and there is nothing else to be seen.
No matter what, we are looking at a potential "Mexican Standoff" between the House and Senate on impeachment proceedings. Neither side will win on this in the end.
I know you just do this for laughs.
From the Op/Ed:
Using the office of the President to advance his political goals is and abuse of power and is inherently impeachable.
It's now doubtful the full House will even vote to impeach. It's obvious they're afraid to take a formal vote.
What lead you to those ridiculous conclusions Greg?
Don't you think that's possible? Not every wrong thing a president does, tries to do, or even thinks out loud about doing is worth impeaching him over.
I feel like you just said "breathing is an abuse of power." What does any politician do? They try to advance their political goals. I'm not trying to say everything Trump is doing is ok, but your statement is so general, I feel like it could apply to anyone.
On the other hand, if he were using his political power to advance his personal goals, that sounds like something that might be an abuse of power. For example, if he used his political power to get his son a job he wasn't qualified for. Or if that son (and by extension, himself) was potentially exposed to an embarrassing criminal investigation and he used his political power to get the prosecutor fired? That sounds like an abuse of power.
Pelosi will not allow a full vote because more than likely, several of the dems in red districts/states will vote against impeachment in order to save their offices.
I can't speak for what you feel like Tex.
Did you think that Carlson's statement was too general too?
Is your posit that re-election isn't Trump's 'personal goal'?
Actually, what it IS is a fantasy. Shokin wasn't conducting a 'criminal investigation' against Hunter Biden, Joe Biden OR Burisma. Anyone that claims there was an ongoing investigation when Shokin was fired is either uninformed or intentionally lying.
What would you call it when he uses his office to bring his daughter to China so that she can nail down long stalled trademark certifications?
What would you call it when he uses his office to connect his son in law with the Saudis, to making deals to bail out his son in law properties in NYC?
That's quite a clueless comment.
There WILL be a vote on Articles of Impeachment.
There need NOT be a vote to start an Impeachment inquiry.
Of course there won't be. Pelosi does not want to lose her job next year. She knows if the 2 or 3 dozen vulnerable dems vote no on an inquiry, Republicans will sweep the House, Senate, and Trump is reelected.
Voting on articles of impeachment will be a little safer because she also knows the Senate will not vote to convict. She can send her little minions back to their districts to say...well, we tried, as we promised.
I said there need not be. BIG difference.
The rest is blather.
No blather in my post, only facts.
OK, you said need...So what?
The fact remains that if Pelosi DID call for a vote to start an inquiry, she knows that she would put many vulnerable libs in danger of getting booted out of office next year. An even bigger fact than that? She knows she will lose her job as speaker. THAT is her biggest fear.
I think I hear your handlers calling you.
Speculation isn't facts.
So you're claiming that your post was 'only facts' yet you infer that I said there WON'T be a vote.
That's utterly illogical. You DO know that at least 225 have come out in favor of an Impeachment inquiry right? Do you think that is being kept secret from their constituents?
Oh and WHY did Pelosi start an Impeachment Inquiry? Do you actually think that 'vulnerable libs' would be LESS vulnerable if they voted FOR Articles of Impeachment. That is ridiculous.
The House can "recommend" a resolution for impeachment based on a simple majority, i.e. 51%, but the Senate "requires" a "super Majority", i.e. 66.7%, to impeach.
Just a clarification.
We are talking about a vote on whether to open and Impeachment Inquiry. That resolution would need only a simple majority too, as do ALL votes for passage in the House.
They say a broken clock is correct at least once a day.
Tucker is way behind that curve, lol.
dependent on which time zone...
day light savings time ,
dark knight losing space on a clock with no arms
to bare, no digitalization to spare, as on display is a loaded blank screen door with out glass sealing
it shut, but a big fan, spinning and blowing , information so fine of coarse,
and peoples snorting it
without remorse
We need to connect two points here:
1) Carlson is right it was inappropriate and 2) It is still NOT an impeachable offense. The WH has to admit to point #1 so that Republicans can have both points 1 & 2 as their talking points!
Who is Tucker Carlson?
Tucker Swanson McNear Carlson (born May 16, 1969) is an American conservative political commentator who has hosted the nightly political talk show Tucker Carlson Tonight on Fox News since 2016.
Early in his career, Carlson was regarded as a libertarian political commentator; more recently, he has expressed skepticism of libertarian economic policies, and aligned himself with American nationalism and right-wing populism.
In October 2018, Tucker Carlson Tonight was the second-highest rated cable news show in prime time, after Hannity, with 3.2 million nightly viewers.
AHA!
So he's no longer a "NYC real estate saleman"! Now he a Deli takeout lunch!
(How does all of that compare to the competition?)
Subway? Chipotle? Potbelly Sandwicj Stop?
(Actually Chick-fil-A might be more appropriate!)
[Deleted]
Tucker said, "There's no way to spin this." ? ? As usual and right on par Tucker is mistaken again.
The "spin" is already underway and working for the 40%.
As far as Carlson. When he ditched the bow tie and adorned himself with the long tie and ceased providing leg shots his credibility sank into the realms where he is most fitting and comfortable.
Fox news pundits are setting themselves up for trump's possible impeachment. They need an escape route. This was Carlson's. Now if trump is impeached, he can say, "well, I did say it was wrong!!!!". They are setting up their excuses ahead of time, (something trump does constantly).
I have noticed over the last two weeks that fox news and it's pundits have been leaning slightly more to the left, (that is to say their spin to the right isn't as ridiculous as it was before).
Fox knows how to read polls and demographics, they know that the general American public is increasingly supportive of impeachment, now they are looking for an exit strategy.
Yea, it really is.
I have to agree with Wally, it's not going to happen.
How can it be a quid pro quo when Ukraine hasn't done anything?
You really should post your own seed if you want to discuss that article.
I quoted and responded to something from this seed.
Then you would have to be aware that Ukraine has reopened the investigation into Burima's founder for yet the 4th time.
As a form of cover to escape being accused of doing it for Trump,
the new PG stated that they would look at 17 high profile corruption cases from the "last few" years as a total review.
So Ukraine is not supposed to try to correct the actions of a previously corrupt regime? Isn't that what Biden pleaded with them to do?
You want to impeach the Ukranian president, too?
Yes and they continue to focus on the self dealing that the owner of Burisma did with natural gas leases when he was the Minister of Natural Resources in 2010 to 2012. This will be their 4th crack at it.
Hunter Biden and Devon Archer were not on the Board at that time.
VP Biden was speaking for the Obama Administration, the EU and the IMF.
I have no vested interest in Ukraine other than wishing to check Putin's greed from spreading.
You?
I'm not interested in either Trump or the Democrats telling me what happened. I'd be interested in a real inquiry that reveals whatever it reveals. As tense as everyone has been about whether or not Trump would be corrupt in favor of himself or his family, we should want to avoid the same thing with a President Biden. I see no harm in looking into it. Having said that, the way Trump went about it was dumb given all the hysteria surrounding everything he does.
The evidence we have that Trump extorted a foreign government to illegally interfer with another US Presidential election alone is plentyy enough of a high crime to impeach and convict Trump of a heinous abuse of Presidential powers...
Just claiming something is extortion doesn't make it so.
How exactly would revealing actual behavior by our own former Vice President when he was acting as Vice President constitute interfering in an election?
Hunter Biden and Burisma have all already been fully investigated and it has been determined that Joe Biden did nothing wrong much less illegal. As to it being legal for the children of those in power to profit from their proximity to that power we should start with those currently guilty of just exactly that, Don Jr, Ivanka and Eric. We do not go around making things retroactively illegal in this country.
Says you. With all due respect, your opinion on the matter isn't relevant. Nor is the opinion of anyone else who is partisan or doesn't have a transparent process. Let's have an independent inquiry.
If it's illegal for Trump, it's illegal for Biden. We wouldn't be making anything retroactively illegal by investigating Biden and holding him accountable.
Says the former Prosecutor General of Ukraine.
Here's an irony for you. Shokin had been sitting on the Burisma investigation and it was going nowhere. THAT was one of the MANY reasons why most of the western world wanted him out. When Shokin was ousted, his replacement, Lutsenko REOPENED the investigation and found NO, NONE, NADA wrongdoing.
Now you say that you want a 'transparent process' and an 'independent inquiry' conducted by Ukraine, the country that Trump and his sycophants claim is uber corrupt.
It defies logic.
If WHAT is illegal?
Investigate WHAT crime EXACTLY?
Accountable for WHAT EXACTLY?
Weird you seeded this rather than the article in question...
Oh yeah, it's because the authors agree that he hasn't committed an impeachable offense. somehow that part was missed.
Oh and I'm sure that I can count on you to step up and call conservatives out when the do the same on almost a daily basis. /s
Actually, they said it would be a hard to argue, not that it didn't happen. All that does is illustrate their own weakness.
Sadly, and unsurprisingly (which is also sad), CNN's headline is an incomplete quotation and there is no indication that it's incomplete. It's incompleteness changes the meaning of what Carlson was trying to say. I don't know how we're defining "fake news" these days, but it sure is deceptive.
I think Tucker basically has this right.
A good idea? No, it was definitely a bad idea, but I don't know if there are many (if any) people trying to spin this as a good idea. It's a particularly bad idea because everything that happened with Russia . . . everything that, as near as anyone can tell didn't actually do anything to change the outcome of the election . . . and as near as anyone can tell the Trump campaign wasn't even trying to cooperate with Russian election saboteurs . . . in spite of all that, we have endured nearly three years of investigations, drama, and distractions.
You would think that anybody with a little common sense would be a little more careful regarding anything remotely connected with the next election and a foreign government, no matter if they be friend or foe. But no. Stupid idea. Stupid that anyone let him do it. Hell it's stupid that the Ukranian president didn't say something like, "well I wouldn't want it to appear as if we were getting involved in your politics."
In any other year, with any other president, I think this might have been way less scandalous. But then I'm not sure any other president would have taken this route. At minimum, I would think they would have their Attorney General or - even better - a Senator with some kind of oversight authority investigate the matter discreetly to see if there was even anything there.
As I said, I think it was dumb. It was definitely sloppy. Trump just doesn't seem to have any desire to follow protocol for pretty much anything he wants done. He just wants what he wants. That's why it might be smarter to always have a default preference for career politicians or military when picking a president.
However, Tucker also made this point that is probably correct:
I think that's probably right. It's right to look for a quid pro quo situation, but that doesn't seem to have happened here. And even if it did, would that be worth impeaching the president? It should at least be a conversation with open minds as opposed to the dogmatic pronouncements we keep hearing. We have an election next year. I believe the country would be better served to just let the voters speak.
You must have missed Trump insisting that the phone call was PERFECT!
Perfectly crooked phone call
Now we see the Guiliani and Trump's people are balls to the wall to corrupt the new president of Ukraine and profit big time. Corruption indeed. Lets look into all of it, all parties, all families. No exceptions. And that includes cabinet members.
Crooked donnie did nothing wrong s/
Actually, it was a typical answer from Trump, the pathetic narcissist.
I don't know why you think I missed it, but you do have a tendency to read things into my comments that aren't there. I didn't miss it at all. He thinks everything he does is perfect, or at least he says so. Therefore, I was not including him in my analysis.
I didn't read ANYTHING into your comment.
The reason why I think you missed it is that you said this:
Now you admit that Trump is indeed trying to spin it as a good thing.
So it looks like you expected me to 'read things into' your comment. Something like 'except Trump'. Ya, that's the ticket...
You're trying too hard again.
You're commenting on ME instead to the topic AGAIN. I read somewhere in Meta where you decried that kind of bullshit.
Inappropriate putting it mildly and using such a mild word for a serious betrayal of America is just how Fox rolls. But the tide is turning because things are so bad even Fox and the talking head punditry over there are calling it out.