ABC’s The View started off the week with a largely cozy interview with Sen. Cory Booker (D-N.J.), a potential 2020 challenger to President Trump. Meghan McCain pressed Booker on the fact that Robert Mueller’s team of investigators is stuffed with registered Democrats and Hillary Clinton donors. Booker kept changing the subject to Trump’s manners:
MEGHAN McCAIN: Bob Mueller is a long-time Republican but Trump tweeted that 13 out of the 17 members were registered Democrats. Six of them donated to Hillary Clinton. Don't you think the optics of that are difficult?
SEN. CORY BOOKER: So I haven’t fact checked it this morning. I heard The New York Times podcast this morning questioned that fact. I just haven’t seen this in any -- in business, when I was the mayor. You just don't see executives heckling and maligning law enforcement the way that this president seems to be comfortable doing. And so for him to be active -- this is part of a larger pattern of Donald Trump going after the intelligence agencies, the FBI. This is unacceptable in America.
Booker is probably referring to the Times podcast "The Daily." On Monday, near the end of the podcast, host Michael Barbaro read the Trump tweet about Mueller's team of Democrats and simply said "Fact checkers immediately cast doubt on that claim, noting among other things, that Mueller himself is a Republican." Lame. Barbaro, in turn, could be referring to PolitiFact, who verified that 13 of 17 are registered Democrats, and eight of them have donated only to Democrats, six of them to Hillary. So where is doubt on the facts? It continued:
McCAIN: So you don't think it's fair game, if they are Democrats that donated to Hillary? [muffled by applause]
BOOKER: I don't think it's fair game for him to be doing what he's doing which is trying to undermine the integrity of agencies by doing all this picking at them. This is so unpresidential of him, but more importantly, it's exactly what the Russians want -- us to be going after our sacred institutions, whether they're the press or the public. What we see right now is a president going after continuously in a vile, vulgar way institutions in our country and people who are trying to serve our nation and keep us safe.
McCAIN: Does it concern you if they're leaking though? That's the accusation right now, and even for people like me, obviously I've always had the utmost respect for the CIA and FBI but if there's leaking going on internally, that's also a huge problem.
BOOKER: But here’s the president of the United States who has access to the understanding – there’s an inspector general report that he could have waited for, let the authorities of the process, let the due process happen. Why is he always on Twitter tormenting people, bullying people in ways that we tell children not to do? [Applause] It's the worst type of behavior, and it's having a consequence on even just the dialogue in our democracy.
Booker weirdly said we need to stop "demonizing" in our politics -- seconds after underlining "independent voices" like former Clinton aide Barry McCaffrey were insisting President Trump is a threat to U.S. national security. That's not demonizing Trump?
Later, McCain mentioned Hillary Clinton's comments in India about Trump's "backward" voters and asked if that's how Democrats should speak. Booker said he isn't focusing on the past, and insisted "Patriotism is love of country. Love of country demands that we love each other." Except for loving the president, apparently.
The View crew's Twitter account sent out a quote and the video of that odd sermon.
