“The View” host Whoopi Goldberg told Newt Gingrich she was not going to let the former House speaker “spin” after he brought up the fact that the Hillary Clinton campaign had worked with foreign entities to try and influence the outcome of the 2016 election.
The program then cut to commercial.
The topic came up on Tuesday’s show, when “The View” co-host Abby Huntsman pressed Gingrich on whether it was wrong for President Donald Trump to raise the issue of Joe and Hunter Biden’s dealings in Ukraine on his July 25 call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
“You admit that it’s an abuse of power though, right, what he did on the phone call?” she asked.
Gingrich did not concede that point, saying he had re-read the transcript of the phone call and saw no evidence of wrongdoing.
A review of the transcript shows Trump made no quid pro quo demand. In fact, the Ukrainians did not know until a month after the call that the Trump administration had directed the aid to be delayed.
He then released it in mid-September with Ukraine not having opened an investigation into the Bidens.
“Then what is [an abuse of power]?” Huntsman wanted to know.
“When I think about a president’s role, if you call a foreign president and you ask them to investigate your opponent in a presidential race … ”
Co-host Sunny Hostin then interjected: “And look into the [Democratic National Committee] server as well.”
“No, I’m actually curious, if that’s not an abuse of power, what is?” Huntsman asked Gingrich.
“What it is is exactly what Hillary Clinton’s campaign did,” Gingrich responded.
“Notice the difference. The Clinton campaign paid to create a dossier … ”
Goldberg then stepped in.
“Hillary — y’all are — tried her, you beat her. She’s not the president. The man who’s the president broke the law,” Goldberg insisted.
“He didn’t break the law. He did not,” Gingrich replied.
However, Goldberg cut him off again, saying, “We’re not going to let you spin,” and the network went to commercial.
Huntsman briefly took up the topic again after the commercial break.
Gingrich explained that Trump was asking the new president of Ukraine in the call to find out the truth.
“It cannot be a crime to try to find the truth,” Gingrich said.
“Sure it can,” Hostin responded.
She argued that Trump should be asking the FBI or other officials in our government to investigate the matter, not a foreign government.
Gingrich then noted this is exactly what Trump said in the call: He hoped Zelensky’s administration would be able to cooperate with Attorney General William Barr’s investigation into interference in the 2016 race and other corruption matters.
Hostin contended that the attorney general should not be working with a foreign government.
It’s unclear how she expects the U.S. government to find out the origin of interference originating from the Ukraine, coordinated in part by a Democratic operative, if he does not.
Hostin insisted it was wrong to be investigating a political opponent in this fashion.
“It’s not investigating a political opponent; it’s investigating an allegation of corruption,” Gingrich said.
Goldberg then cut Gingrich off, saying, “Excuse me while I spin,” and turned around in her chair, drawing laughter and cheers from the audience.
“You can’t announce you’re a candidate and then say ‘therefore I can’t be investigated,'” Gingrich argued.
The former speaker noted foreign influence in the 2016 election was not limited to Ukraine, referencing the fact that former British spy Christopher Steele wrote the now-infamous Trump-Russia dossier.
The dossier was used, in part, by the FBI to launch a counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign.
He added that a “whole series of people in Europe” also helped.
One of them was Australian diplomat Alexander Downer, who arranged a meeting with Trump campaign adviser George Papadopoulos in London in May 2016.
Downer pushed Papadopoulos to admit the campaign was working with the Russians, but the adviser told him he had no knowledge of anything like that.
“The whole effort to smear [Trump] was a multinational effort,” Gingrich said, drawing dismissive reactions from the co-hosts.
They obviously need to do their homework.
Even former special counsel Robert Mueller’s report noted there were multiple attempts to reach out to the Trump campaign from foreign individuals, but no evidence that the campaign colluded with Russia.
It’s quite obvious that Goldberg and the rest of her cohorts can’t handle the truth when it comes to the Democrats’ misconduct in 2016.
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