'This Week' Transcript 6-11-23: Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen. Chris Coons
Interview
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Thank you.
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Well, here's what I believe. We live in an America where, if you're the Democratic candidate for president, Hillary Clinton, secretary of state, you can set up a private server in your basement to conduct government business. And when an investigation...
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... is had about your activity -- no, let me finish.
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This panel you had was ridiculous -- well, yeah, I'm trying to answer the question from a Republican point of view. That may not be acceptable on this show.
Yes, I don't like what President Trump did in certain aspects. I don't like that Joe Biden had classified information on the garage. I don't like that Mike Pence carelessly took classified information. I don't like any of that. But what I don't like is a system in America where the secretary of state, who's a Democratic candidate for president, has people take a hammer to social media devices and break them apart, apply BleachBit to a hard drive to erase e-mails, allow classified information to get on a felon's computer -- Anthony Weiner. You haven't even mentioned that.
Most Republicans believe we live in a country where Hillary Clinton did very similar things and nothing happened to her. President Trump will have his day in court. But espionage charges are absolutely ridiculous. Whether you like Trump or not, he did not commit espionage. He did not disseminate, leak or provide information to a foreign power or to a news organization to damage this country. He is not a spy. He's overcharged.
Did he do things wrong? Yes, he may have. He will be tried about that. But Hillary Clinton wasn't. Your old boss committed perjury in a civil lawsuit, lost his law license, obstructed justice in a dozen ways, and he didn't get prosecuted.
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I can't stress to you enough...
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He was impeached, but he wasn't prosecuted.
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OK, let's -- let's talk about that. I don't know what happened; I haven't heard the audio. But look at who's been charged under the Espionage Act, Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, Chelsea Manning, people who turned over classified information to news organizations to hurt the country or provide it to a foreign power. That did not happen here.
Donald Trump -- you may hate his guts, but he is not a spy; he did not commit espionage. What he did is very similar, in my view, to what Hillary Clinton did. People in the Clinton case took a hammer to a BlackBerry and destroyed it. They wiped clean, with BleachBit, e-mails. They said they were all personal, but some of them actually were classified. And it wound up on Anthony Weiner's computer, and not a damn thing happen to her.
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Yeah, right.
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Give me a break.
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He didn't do it.
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It's -- I'm not saying it's OK. I'm not saying it's OK to take a hammer to a -- a BlackBerry. I don't think -- I think none of this is okay.
When I -- when Chris Coons and my good friend will be on a minute, when we view classified information, we have to sign in, go into a room and turn it back over. You've got vice presidents, secretary of states and presidents handling this stuff. You had Bill Clinton with tapes in his sock drawer.
I would like to review the system, but here's the point I'm trying to make -- what's happening to Manhattan with Donald Trump has never happened to anybody in the history of New York. I think the espionage charges are completely wrong and I think they paint an impression that doesn't exist. This is not espionage.
And I do believe, George, that most people on my side of the aisle believes when it comes to Donald Trump, there are no rules. And you can do the exact same thing or something similar as a Democrat and nothing happens to you.
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The leading candidate for president of the United States on the Republican side is being prosecuted by his opponent.
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Yeah, I heard that.
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Well, I don't know if that's true. He believes he has the power to do that. He will argue the Presidential Records Act. I don't know if he's right or not.
There will be a trial about this, because I cannot stress to you enough that we live in a world today where most Republicans believe that Hunter Biden's laptop was real and people knew it was real but they told the public something else to help Joe Biden. We live in a world where it takes four years to investigate Hunter Biden and you can go after Donald Trump in about 18 months.
I know you don't get what I'm saying, but people on my side believe it, and I think Donald Trump is stronger today politically than he was before. I think the espionage charges are ridiculous. I think what happened to Hillary Clinton where she got away with is very similar to what happened to President Trump. And we'll have an election and we'll have a trial.
But I promise you this, most Americans believe -- most Republicans believe that the law is used as a weapon against Donald Trump.
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Yeah.
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I'm not -- I'm not -- I'm not justifying his behavior. If it were up to me, nobody would take classified information in their garage or Mar-a-Lago.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think what's happening here is trying to delegitimize him is what I'm saying.
The game has changed for future presidents. Bill Clinton's under the '23 -- 2023 standard would be persecuted for perjury. All I can say is we changed the game.
You impeached him after he was out of office. Now, you bring in charges in Manhattan that are completely ridiculous. You're accusing the guy of being a spy through espionage. It's not going to change my support for Donald Trump.
He's innocent until proven guilty. But what I'm trying to convey to you and I'm sorry I'm not doing a better job, that most Republicans believe that the law now is a political tool, that Hunter Biden's laptop story was -- that the people in charge that had their thumb on the scale, and that the reason it was not known to be true in October of 2024 before the election is the intelligence community wanted you to believe it was Russian disinformation when it wasn't.
This double standard is real in the minds of most Republicans.
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Thank you.
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