‘What Do You Mean You’re Not Familiar?!’ Stephanopoulos Grills GOP Senator Dodging His Question on Controversial Trump Pardon
George Stephanopoulos grilled a Republican Senator who danced around questions about President Donald Trump’s pardon of convicted drug trafficker Juan Orlando Hernandez — the former president of Honduras.
In a testy interview Sunday on ABC’s This Week, Stephanpoulos confronted Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-MO) about the president’s move to take Hernandez off the hook.
“Do you support this pardon of the former Honduran president?” Stepohanopoulos asked.
“I’m not familiar with the facts or circumstances,” Schmitt replied. “But I think what’s telling here is to try to imply that somehow President Trump is soft on drug smuggling is just ridiculous. It’s totally ridiculous.”
Schmitt went on to give a nearly two-minute answer in which he defended Trump and the strikes on suspected narco-boats, but did not address the Hernandez pardon. A visibly peeved Stephanopoulos promptly followed up.
“What do you mean you’re not familiar with the facts and circumstances of the pardon?!” Stephanopoulos said. “It’s been well reported all across the country. He is the former president of Honduras. He was convicted of conspiring to bring in 400 tons of cocaine into the United States, also guns and other materials. It’s been front page news across the country. Aren’t you curious about that?”
The senator went on to attack Stephanopoulos while — again — delivering a lengthy answer which didn’t address the question.
“I’m curious about your pushback on that particular point,” Schmitt said. “With your previous guest, you had zero pushback because he is, giving the Democrat talking points like you spew every single week, which is probably why your ratings are so bad.”
One more time, Stephanopoulos tried to get an answer out of his guest.
“Do you support the pardon of the convicted drug smuggler or not?” Stephanopoulos asked bluntly.
“George, like I said, what we’re talking about here are the narco-terrorists poisoning Americans,” Schmitt said. “This attempt to try to focus on a pardon is classic because you’ve lost the debate now on the narco-terrorist question.”
Trump, last Sunday, defended the pardon by claiming Hernandez was targeted by the Biden DOJ.
“I was asked by Honduras, many of the people of Honduras, they said it was a Biden setup,” Trump said. He added, “He was the president of the country and they basically said he was a drug dealer because he was the president of the country, and they said it was a Biden administration setup, and I looked at the facts and I agree with them.”
Watch above, via ABC.
New: The Mediaite One-Sheet "Newsletter of Newsletters"
Your daily summary and analysis of what the many, many media newsletters are saying and reporting. Subscribe now!
Comments
↓ Scroll down for comments ↓