CNN’s Dana Bash: ‘You Can’t Blame’ Trump For Boasting That Mueller Report Vindicates Him
Hours after Attorney General William Barr released a summary of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation that found that President Trump nor his aides directly conspired with Russia’s attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, CNN correspondent Dana Bash said “you can’t blame” the president for spiking the football and crowing “over and over” that the report vindicated him.
Prior to heading back to the White House from Mar-a-Lago, the president briefly addressed the press and complained how poorly he’d been treated by “an illegal takedown that failed” and that the Mueller investigation didn’t look at the “other side.”
“A lot of horrible things happened, a lot of very bad things happened for our country,” he bellowed. “It was just announced there was no collusion with Russia, the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever heard.”
He added: “It’s a shame that your president has had to go through this for before I even got elected, it began. And it began illegally. Hopefully, somebody is going to look at the other side. This was an illegal takedown that failed.”
During CNN’s Mueller coverage Sunday afternoon, Bash was asked why the president didn’t wait until he got back to the White House and scheduled an official event to first address the conclusions, instead firing off a short tweet and giving brief remarks to the press pool.
“Why? Because he’s the President of the United States who has been saying this mantra, “No Collusion,” for so long and now he has this at least summary to help prove his point — to vindicate him,” she said.
Bash continued: “And so he has been champing at the bit to say that with this report, and he has the chance to do it. He’s no question going to do it over and over again, and you know what? You can’t blame him.”
Anchor Wolf Blitzer agreed with Bash, noting that if the report revealed Trump wasn’t involved in Russian collusion that he’d be “very, very happy.”
How much will Trump relish these remarks from a CNN reporter, especially considering how often he’s attacked the network for being “Fake News” and out to get him?
The summary, meanwhile, also noted that Mueller reached no conclusion over whether the president obstructed justice when it came to the investigation, stating that while “this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
Watch the clip above, via CNN.
