Conspiracy theories: They’re back in fashion again on MSNBC!
Sure, there was a while in the liberal media there where questioning whether Hunter Biden’s laptop was Russian disinformation or whether the 2020 elections were the safest, securest elections ever held was a mortal sin, where “fake news” was a threat to democracy, where raising questions about who was really calling the shots at the White House was febrile ageism.
But now that 1) Donald Trump is again the front-runner for the GOP presidential nomination and 2) Vladimir Putin is back in the news, a former House speaker and former White House press secretary can openly speculate on MSNBC about what kind of kompromat the leader of Russia has on Trump — despite the fact the left has spent almost a decade trying to uncover some leverage and none has emerged.
On Monday, network host Jen Psaki, formerly of “circle back” fame, welcomed “House speaker emerita” — because when “former House speaker” isn’t veneration enough, use some Latin — Nancy Pelosi, now just a standard-issue California representative, onto her show to discuss a variety of topics related to the death of Alexei Navalny in Russian prison. Which, of course, was an excuse to talk about the conspiracy theory that Donald Trump is somehow a tool of Vladimir Putin, the man who helped put Navalny in prison.
During the interview, Pelosi claimed that Putin was the “richest person in the world” and was “stiff competition” for the world’s most evil person.
Now, those two statements by the “speaker emerita” are certainly up for debate. Putin’s real net worth is anyone’s guess — a CNN report in 2022 indicated his actual net worth could be about $200 billion dollars, despite the Kremlin’s farcical insistence his annual salary is $140,000. And although Kim Jong Un, Xi Jinping, Ayatollah Khamenei and Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh might want to have a word with Pelosi about that status regarding world’s most evil man, I’m sure on some leaderboards, Putin puts up a strong fight.
However, things got into fever swamp territory quickly when Pelosi asked rhetorically, “What does he have on Donald Trump that he’d have to constantly be catering to Putin?”
“Telling Putin, ‘Go into these countries’ — NATO countries! NATO was there to stop Russia, to keep Russia out. They have been successful for nearly 75 years,” she continued, Psaki smiling and nodding along.
Now, in case you missed this part, Pelosi is referring to comments made earlier in the month by Trump about one of his major gripes on the world stage during his presidency: That, despite signing a treaty that obligated NATO countries to spend a certain amount of their budget on defense, plenty of major NATO allies were in arrears in those obligations — with the tacit obligation that the United States was there to pick up the slack.
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“NATO was busted until I came along,” Trump said at a rally, according to Fox News. “I said, ‘Everybody’s gonna pay.’ They said, ‘Well, if we don’t pay, are you still going to protect us?’ I said, ‘Absolutely not.’ They couldn’t believe the answer.”
Smart answer? No. Fealty to Putin? Also no.
You may notice that Putin didn’t attack a NATO nation during Trump’s time in office and waited until Joe Biden’s presidency to invade Ukraine. But these are facts, and facts aren’t present on a show where the front-runner for the Republican presidential nomination is referred to as if he were Voldemort, the villain who “shall not be named” in the “Harry Potter” saga.
No, seriously, that’s where Pelosi went next: “And then we have, what’s his name, I usually have him nameless, saying he doesn’t support NATO,” Pelosi said regarding Trump.
“‘He Who Shall Not Be Named,’ I know Voldemort well, so there’s another guy kind of like him,” Psaki added.
Then came more conspiracy theorizing: “What do you think? We’re all wondering this question, Speaker Pelosi, what do you think Putin has on him?”
“I don’t know what he has on him, but I think it’s probably financial,” Pelosi said. “Either something financial he has on him or something on the town.”
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“On the town” is, of course, a highly euphemistic way to refer to the unverified rumors that there’s some kind of sexually compromising material that Putin has on Trump. This found its genesis in the almost wholly discredited Steele dossier, in which the existence of a “pee tape” was claimed.
If you don’t know about the alleged contents of that nonexistent piece of kompromat seven years after the dossier became public, I’m not going to describe them to you. But, given that it hasn’t emerged yet and U.S. intelligence has found the claims of the dossier — a piece of opposition research originally commissioned by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and assembled by a uniquely credulous former MI6 British intelligence official named Christopher Steele — to be either 1) false, 2) unverified or 3) unverifiable by their very nature, I wouldn’t be holding my breath.
And, as for financial links between Trump and Russia, those have been tried. Remember the false reports of ties between the Trump Organization and Kremlin-linked Alfa Bank? Or when MSNBC host Lawrence O’Donnell breathlessly reported that Trump’s loans with Deutsche Bank had been co-signed by “Russian oligarchs” — and then had to retract the report a day later because it was based on a single source that couldn’t be verified?
WATCH: Lawrence O’Donnell retracts his reporting about Trump loans. pic.twitter.com/JxNsIPhBNg
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) August 29, 2019
In other words: Same insanity, different year.
Since virtually the moment he started running for president, the Democrats have been trying to connect Donald Trump to Vladimir Putin, either financially or through blackmail. They haven’t come up with a shred of verified evidence for these theories despite U.S. intelligence, federal law enforcement and even a special counsel delving into it.
But on MSNBC, Jen Psaki and Nancy Pelosi can still delve into the mire of conspiracy theory without a shred of evidence to back it up or fact-checking to provide an impediment. Fake news is officially back in style.
