White Home adviser Dan Pfeiffer must not have specifically loved himself this weekend, provided that his Sunday convey appearances were shielding at easiest and contentious at worst. CBS’ Face the Nation host Bob Schieffer accounted for the latter as he grilled Pfeiffer on the White House response to the problems — and why the administration pleads lack of awareness when things go flawed.
Reducing to the chase, Schieffer puzzled whether or not the White Home is coming near the problems in earnest (“Does that imply you don’t take any of this seriously?”), which Pfeiffer speedy denied. The chief of body of workers, he explained, was arguing that: “This is the Republican playbook right here which is try, after they don’t have a good agenda, try to drag Washington right into a swamp of partisan fishing expeditions, trumped up hearings and false allegations.”
“, I don’t want to examine this in any way to Watergate,” Schieffer answered. “I do not think this is Watergate by way of any stretch. But you weren’t born then I’d bet, but I’ve to let you know that is precisely the method that the Nixon administration took. They stated, ‘These are all 2d-charge issues. We don’t have time for this. We have now to dedicate our time to the folks’s industry.’ You’re taking exactly the identical line that they did.”
Pfeiffer clarified that the IRS movements were “inexcusable” and demand motion — citing to established points about top-down opinions, et cetera. It’s “very difficult,” Schieffer argued, to consider how the White House would have been ignorant to the goings-on throughout the agency. Pfeiffer claimed it was so, as Schieffer persevered to express skepticism.
“Is this president out of contact?” the CBS host requested, addressing the controversy about Obama frequently appearing to be a bystander. The “exact, actual scandal” would were if the president had interfered with an investigation, Pfeiffer countered.
Schieffer pressed on although: Later in the interview, he denied any desire to be “argumentative,” however brought up that once the manager department does one thing proper (e.g. killing Osama bin Weighted down), the White Home has no “hesitancy” in taking credit score.
“But with all of these items, when these items occur, you appear to send out officials repeatedly who don’t even appear to grasp what has came about,” he introduced, as distinction.
“And I exploit for example of that Susan Rice who had no connection in anyway to the occasions that came about in Benghazi, and but she was once sent out, appeared on this broadcast, and other Sunday announces, five days after it occurs. And I’m not right here to get in an argument with you about who modified which word within the talking points and all that. The bottom line is what she told the American those that day bore no resemblance to what had happened on the ground in an incident where four American citizens have been killed.”
Not moderately responding to the purpose Schieffer used to be making, Pfeiffer reverted to the a lot-repeated argument about how the administration put forth knowledge as they received it.
Schieffer reiterated that he used to be conversing about the “PR plan.”
“Why did you do that?” he requested. “Why didn’t the secretary of state come and tell us what they knew and for those who knew nothing say, ‘We don’t know yet’? Why didn’t the White Home chief of team of workers come out? I mean I would, and I imply this as no disrespect to you — why are you here today? Why isn’t the White Home chief of personnel right here to tell us what came about?”
Unsurprisingly, Pfeiffer didn’t broach these questions, rhetorical or now not.
Have a look, via CBS: