On Friday’s broadcast of HBO’s “Real Time,” CNN host and Washington Post columnist Fareed Zakaria denounced NBC’s dismissal of former RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel and noted that former President Bill Clinton lied under oath and has been on MSNBC and “Stacey Abrams was an election denier about her own election and they’ve had her on.”
Zakaria said, “I think, as you say, you’ve got to remember, about a third of the country still believes that the 2020 election was incorrectly decided, that’s about 85 million adult Americans. And, to be fair to her, she has now said that she thinks Biden is the legitimate president. So, really, the question is, how much do you punish her for her past lies? And I think the point here is, liberals are meant to believe in free speech, that is one of the foundational values of liberalism. And if you’re going to say you’re going to deplatform 85 million Americans, that’s a lot of people. They say, no, it’s not about that, it’s that she lied. Well, Bill Clinton lied, under oath. I think, last time I checked, he’s been on MSNBC. They say, well, she’s an election denier. Well, Stacey Abrams was an election denier about her own election and they’ve had her on. The larger point is — the book I’ve written is really about there’s four centuries of progress and backlash. And what you find is, liberals often trigger backlash when they use illiberal means to get to their ends. They’re like, we’re going to do what it takes. And the truth is — and I mean liberalism in a broad sense, liberal democracy, freedom of speech, constitution, these are precious inheritances that we have. The way you’re going to defend it, the way you’re going to move it forward is by not cheating, not cutting corners, not having double standards, because if we have them, then what Trump says is, well, you cut corners, I cut corners.”
He added that “college presidents fell into the same double standard. People said, wait a minute, you’re saying it’s okay to say nasty things about Jews. But wait, but when people said nasty things about African Americans, you said, oh no, that’s hate speech. You can’t have these double standards. If you’re going to apply a standard, just apply it consistently.”
Zakaria added that Clinton’s lies are different from McDaniel’s.
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
