Rachel Maddow Slams Trump For Claiming MSNBC Edited His Town Hall Abortion Answer
Democratic White House hopeful Bernie Sanders has now made it a feature of his stump speech to call GOP frontrunner Donald Trump a pathological liar. It is hard to argue with the Vermont Senator when the celebrity billionaire is constantly caught spouting things that are a demonstrably false and easily provable.
During a phone-in (shocking, I know) interview on Fox News’ The O’Reilly Factor Thursday evening, Trump told guest host and loyal Trumpkin Eric Bolling that while it was possible he misspoke when answering Chris Matthews’ question on abortion in the previous night’s town hall, MSNBC cut out a portion of the exchange, taking away the context. He also seemed to indicate to Bolling that he actually told the Hardball host that he had the same views as Ronald Reagan and that he preferred punishments be given to doctors for illegal abortions, but that the network edited it all out.
That was all happening while Rachel Maddow was on the air. Immediately after Trump’s interview with Bolling, the network handed Maddow a statement to be read live. The MSNBC anchor first played clips from the Fox News segment in which The Donald made his allegations. She then followed it up with an explanation on how the Wednesday night town hall was filmed.
See, while it was indeed filmed a few hours before airtime, it was taped as a live event and aired as such. Meaning, no cuts or edits. It was recorded just as if it were being aired live. Anyone watching it would realize that the whole abortion segment that has gotten Trump in such hot water with both anti-abortion and pro-choice folks developed over the course of a few minutes and was unedited. While Trump is correct to say it was a long discussion and “convoluted,” and they did discuss Matthews’ religion during the conversation, at no point could someone point out where an edit was done. Especially Trump.
After reading the network’s short statement, which completely refuted the real estate mogul’s allegations, Maddow then added one last little bit of commentary.
“We know that, and Mr. Trump knows that, too. And any allegation otherwise is provably untrue. Seriously? I mean, even trying to sell this to a competing network, that is ridiculous.”
While Maddow has never been one to go easy on Donald Trump, which is why he won’t do an interview with her, it is notable that the network itself decided to release a statement right away and hit back at their meal ticket. MSNBC, along with the other cable outlets, has drawn a lot of heat over its treatment and coverage of the Republican candidate. However, over the past few days, it seems most in the cable news environment are starting to heed the criticisms that have been levied against them, and treating Trump like they would any deeply unpopular and dangerous political figure.
And he isn’t liking it one bit.
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of MSNBC:
