Susan Glasser of The New Yorker joined CNN Newsroom co-hosts Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto on Monday to talk about Russian election interference and in the process spread some fake news about National Security Advisor Robert O'Brien.
Harlow began by asking Glasser to comment on a clip of O’Brien’s Sunday "striking" interview with ABC's George Stephanopoulos where he called out Bernie Sanders for honeymooning in the Soviet Union and called the reporting that said Russia is interfering in 2020 for the purposes of getting President Trump re-elected a "non-story."\
After the clip, Glasser commented, "Well, that’s a remarkable number of what appear to be false claims on the part of the national security adviser, first of all. Obviously there is bountiful public evidence from the Trump Administration's own government that suggest that Russia, as it did in 2016, is seeking to intervene in the 2020 election."
But, that's not what O'Brien said. He wasn't saying Russia didn't meddle. He was talking about the claims that Russia favors Trump, which even CNN's own reporting on the House Intelligence Committee briefing disputes, but neither host interrupted to correct this false allegation. Notice she didn't take exception to Sanders honeymooning in the USSR.
Instead, Glasser used the false information to attack Trump and O'Brien:
You know, O'Brien is a very interesting example, he’s almost a prototypical Trump appointee at this point, probably the least experienced, least qualified National Security Adviser ever to serve in the position since it was created. And, again, why was he chosen? It appears, you know, for reasons really of personal, perceived personal loyalty to President Trump and the idea that American foreign policy and national security at this point has been reoriented not around an ideology, but around the person of the president himself.
It is clearly unfair to O'Brien to say he got the job simply for being a "loyalist." Before he became national security advisor he was the government's top hostage negotiator and was quite successful at it. As for ideology that is also not true. O'Brien is a devoted advocate of increasing the size of the Navy. Why is "loyalist" a pejorative? Didn't President Obama demand loyalty to see to it that his policies were implemented?
But when it came to Obama, Glasser didn't complain he might be the least experienced, least qualified president to ever serve as Commander-in-Chief. She gushed all over him as basically scandal-free. She's a partisan.
Here is a transcript for the February 24 show:
CNN
CNN Newsroom with Poppy Harlow and Jim Sciutto
10:17 AM ET
POPPY HARLOW: So, Susan, to Mike Rogers’ point about that, I thought the interview that National Security Adviser Robert O'Brien did on ABC yesterday with George Stephanopoulos was striking for a number of reasons. I mean, he called it a non-story in terms of are the Russians trying to help the president and then just the way that he talked about Bernie Sanders. Listen to two parts of that interview.
BEGIN CLIP
ROBERT O’BRIEN: Well, there are reports that they want Bernie Sanders to get elected president. That's no surprise. He honeymooned in Moscow… Who knows what happened at the House and the intelligence committee. I haven't seen evidence that Russia is doing anything to get President Trump re-elected and our message to the Russians is stay out of the U.S. elections. We have been very tough on Russia and we’ve been great on election security. So, I think it is a non-story.END CLIP
HARLOW: What was your read on that?
SUSAN GLASSER: Well, that’s a remarkable number of what appear to be false claims on the part—HARLOW: Yes
GLASSER:-- of the national security adviser, first of all. Obviously there is bountiful public evidence from the Trump Administration's own government that suggest that Russia as it did in 2016 is seeking to intervene in the 2020 election. You know, O'Brien is a very interesting example, he’s almost a prototypical Trump appointee at this point, probably the least experienced, least qualified national security adviser ever to serve in the position since it was created. And, again, why was he chosen? It appears, you know, for reasons really of personal, perceived personal loyalty to President Trump and the idea that American foreign policy and national security at this point has been reoriented not around an ideology, but around the person of the president himself. There was a story in the Times the other day, whose lead was about the new national security council and the O'Brien reading tweets out loud from the president to begin discussions of policy. Rather than advising the president on what policy should be, giving him the benefit of American intelligence, the Pentagon, synthesizing the government for the president, essentially
taking the tweets of the president and trying to retro fit policy around it.JIM SCIUTTO: Yeah, Yeah
GLASSER: And that's where personnel is policy. In this administration, and many others. The difference is that it is personal loyalty to Trump as opposed to ideology that seems to be the goal.
