During the second presidential debate Sunday, GOP nominee Donald Trump declared that he would appoint a special prosecutor to look into the Hillary Clinton e-mail situation because he felt the original outcome was suspect. Clinton soon after remarked that she was glad someone like him wasn’t in charge, to which Trump replied that she would be in jail. From there CNN went off the deep end with Wolf Blitzer falsely claiming, “He's going to put her in jail if he’s elected president of the United States.”
“Not to sound too corny, but what makes this country different from countries with dictators in Africa or Stalin or Hitler or any of those countries with dictators and totalitarian leaders, is that when they took over, they put their opponents in jail,” stated Chief Political Correspondent Dana Bash.
CNN’s Jake Tapper also got in on the exaggeration saying:
Donald Trump saying that if he gets elected president he's going to ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to put Hillary Clinton in jail. This is the kind of thing that they do in countries not like the United States, where you lock up and jail your political opponents.
CNN’s Chief Political Analyst Gloria Borger described Trump’s comment as Nixonian and falsely quoted Trump as saying ""I’d put her in jail."" Borger also took exception with Trump calling Clinton a liar and claimed that he called Clinton “the devil multiple times,” even though he only called her the devil once. Borger and the panel went on to argue that these statements about Clinton are turning Trump off to voters, even though people don’t think she’s trust worthy.
Transcript below:
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CNN
Debate Night in America
October 9, 2016
11:03:37 PM EasternWOLF BLITZER: We got an excellent moment right now to discuss something I've never heard in any of these debates before between two presidential candidates and Dana, let's talk about this. One candidate says not only is he going to put forward a special prosecutor to investigate his rival, but (and this is very significant) he's going to put her in jail if he’s elected president of the United States. That's pretty extraordinary.
DANA BASH: Okay. Not to sound too corny, but what makes this country different from countries with dictators in Africa or Stalin or Hitler or any of those countries with dictators and totalitarian leaders, is that when they took over, they put their opponents in jail. To hear one presidential candidate, say (even if it was a flip comment, which it was) “you're going to be in jail” to another presidential candidate on the debate stage in the United States of America, stunning, just stunning.
BLITZER: It certainly is.
…
11:17:49 PM Eastern
JAKE TAPPER: One thing I'm wondering if Donald Trump introduced at this night’s debate, that we just talked about over here, that might become a bigger thing for the Clinton campaign-- and I think we can agree they are much more effective at the attacks and commercials and with surrogates, et cetera, and that is, Donald Trump saying that if he gets elected president he's going to ask his attorney general to appoint a special prosecutor to put Hillary Clinton in jail. This is the kind of thing that they do in countries not like the United States, where you lock up and jail your political opponents. This feeds into something that we've heard -- a criticism we've heard, actually, more from conservative critics of Donald Trump than liberal critics of Donald Trump, the idea that can you imagine this man with his temperament and with his drive for vengeance having instruments of government at his hands, the IRS, et cetera. I wonder if that actually was a much bigger gaffe than we are making it out to be.
GLORIA BORGER: I think it is. I think it's a huge gaffe. Republicans talk about the imperial presidency and how Barack Obama has abused his executive powers. Imagine somebody being asked to serve as attorney general if you knew that a president was going to direct prosecutions. I'm not a lawyer. But I get that. And it is, as Dana was pointing out, Nixonian to a great degree and I think that it is also un-American, to a great degree. And I think that is something that the Clinton campaign can use and can use very effectively.
Also, to me, when he said, “I’d put her in jail,” remember during the convention the chants of “lock her up, lock her up.” And he kind of sort of tried to quiet it a little bit at the convention because he was in presidential mode. Now, this was a primary campaign debate tonight and what he was doing was rallying the base by saying lock her up, effectively, which he did, also calling her a liar multiple times and the devil multiple times and saying he would put her in jail.
TAPPER: And he said that she had hate in her heart.
BORGER: Hate in her heart.
...
