Media top headlines February 23
In media news today, James Clapper said he wished the Obama White House was more aggressive against Russia, an MSNBC guest claims the Obama administration emboldened Putin to invade Ukraine, and ‘The Five’ remembers Bob Beckel.
The hosts of the "Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show" criticized a column from the blog of the "Rachel Maddow Show" on Wednesday. The two hosts said the article exemplified how the media is trying to deflect any blame from President Biden and his weakness on the world stage for Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
Sexton, a former CIA analyst, read from a post by Steve Benen, a producer for Maddow's program, which claimed Russia chose to wait to invade Ukraine because former President Trump was giving the Kremlin what it wanted.
"Why didn’t Russia invade Ukraine during Trump’s term? Perhaps because Putin was so pleased to see Trump pursuing goals in line with Moscow’s agenda," Sexton read from the blog post.
"Let me say this is intellectually indefensible," Sexton said. "This is moron stuff here."
Co-host Travis added that the blog was the latest example of trying to "give Biden cover" from domestic political fallout as a full-scale invasion threatens to tank the U.S. economy in part because of the president's decisions on energy policy -- as well as present the potential for a larger-scale military action in the East.
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U.S. President Biden speaks at the General Motors Factory ZERO electric vehicle assembly plant on Nov. 17, 2021, in Detroit, Michigan. (Nic Antaya/Getty Images | Mikhail Svetlov/Getty Images | istock)
"They are desperate to provide Biden cover… we had a big discussion [with Trump] on Monday about the maneuvers Vladimir Putin was trying to undertake in order to end up in a situation where he might be able to claim part of Ukraine -- but have sent the message that he’s going to invade and take over the whole country," Travis said. "And so, as a result it’s not as bad as trying to take over Kyiv or trying to take over the entire country, and so he’s able to add those eastern Ukraine regions to his own overall footprint of Russia."
Travis said Trump told him Russian President Vladimir Putin was never willing to take such actions while he was in the White House, with the host adding that arguments to the contrary are "fundamentally dishonest."
Sexton went on to note how Trump was lambasted for describing Putin's strategy as "savvy," clarifying that the former real estate mogul was speaking to the "efficacy of Putin's tactics" rather than the merit or rightfulness of them.
Travis later added that the media used very tiny pieces of their interview with Trump to further the efforts like those in the Maddow blog to deflect blame from Biden and return to their favorite political foil in the former president.
"So what you are seeing by the way that they reacted to a clip -- not even a full couple of minutes of a discussion surrounding Ukraine [as] a desperate attempt to try and make it look like it’s not Joe Biden's fault," he said. "Have you noticed the pivot already that’s going on?"
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In the Maddow blog post, author Benen wrote how, in response to the controversy between him and the National Archives about documents he reportedly took with him to his home in Florida after leaving office, Trump invoked the Ukraine matter, saying in part he was "too busy making sure Russia didn't attack" it.
Benen wrote how Putin targeted several former territories of the Soviet Union during the last four presidents' terms except for Trump -- and that, given the impeachment-eliciting controversy over Trump's overtures with Ukraine, an invasion "risked" interrupting something Putin apparently wanted.
Fox News' Joseph A. Wulfsohn contributed to this report.