FBN’s Risk and Reward
January 17, 2018
5:34 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES [on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, 12/06/17]: First, there was something else from the event that sent the internet a buzz. Trump's apparent slurred speech toward the end of his remarks.
PETER ALEXANDER [on NBC’s Today, 12/07/17]: Meanwhile, here at the White House, there was a moment at the end the president's speech yesterday on Jerusalem that caught a lot of people's attention. This is where the President appeared to slur his words.
BRIAN WILLIAMS [on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, 12/06/17]: We wanted to catch up with something happened on live today during the Israel announcement. It promptly set their on fire as the president slurred some of his words in a way that some folks found disconcerting.
LIZ MACDONALD: There is media outlets went big time on President Trump appearing to slur his words during a speech last month. The media continuing to take aim at the President’s health during a press conference with the White House physician, insinuating President Trump is mentally ill and more. Roll tape.
HALLIE JACKSON: Can you accept the President's mental fitness for office?
DR. RONNY JACKSON: I'm going to do a cognitive exam. I had no intention of doing one. [SCREEN WIPE] The President did exceedingly well on it, so that was not driven at all by any political concerns I have. That was driven by the president's wishes.
STEVEN PORTNOY: Do you believe he's fit for duty?
JACKSON: Absolutely he's fit for duty.
CECILIA VEGA: There have been reports the President has forgotten names, that he’s repeating himself. Are you ruling out things like early onset Alzheimer's? Are you looking at dementia-like symptoms?
JACKSON: The fact that the President got, you know, 30 out of 30 on that exam, I think that, you know, there's no indication whatsoever that he has any cognitive issue.
MACDONALD: With me now, the director of media analysis at Media Research Center, he's Tim Graham. Tim, what was your reaction to that press conference yesterday?
TIM GRAHAM: We thought it was crazy. Look, Jeff Flake picked the wrong day to give this speech today after the press just embarrassed themselves by all asking questions. A — a battery of questions refusing to accept the idea that Donald Trump is mentally fit to be President. This is a result they do not accept as real, as scientific. In fact, CNN suggested the doctor was a Trump fanboy, even though he also was the doctor for President Obama. I mean, for them to ask questions like does he have dentures? Is Twitter a medical problem? And does he have drug addiction?
MACDONALD: Okay.
GRAHAM: I mean, people just looked at it and said who are these people?
MACDONALD: You know, President Trump's doctors spent over an hour with the press explaining to reporters that the slurring during the speech was because of a dose of cold medicine had dried out his mouth and also we have MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinksi, not happy with the President's physical results. Here's what Mika had to say.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That, along with the fact that the President appears to be according to the doctor healthy, worries me because if he wasn't healthy, that would be a great excuse for this behavior. Now he has none, which you can then deduce other things that are far more nefarious and frightening. Steve Rattner, I won't ask you to answer to that, but I think it's worth saying I just wonder how you look at all of this given the fact that there's a shutdown looming.
STEVE RATTNER: Well, actually I had a similar thought about the President, which is I wasn't sure whether to turn out to be cognitively healthy or cognitively not healthy.
BRZEZINSKI: I’m disturbed that they say he’s cognitively health.
RATTNER: If you're cognitively healthy, you do all of this stuff. It’s pretty bad.
BRZEZINSKI: I think the word evil comes to mind.
RATTNER: But yeah, you’re right.
MACDONALD: Listen, free speech, First Amendment, we get it. But what was your reaction to what Mika said there?
GRAHAM: They're being honored, Joe and Mika, for somehow being titans of journalism. This is what — this show is a mess that they would come on and Joe Scarborough said repeatedly that he had a source unnamed inside Trumpland who told him the president had early onset dementia. It clearly wasn't the doctor and so when they end up looking like purveyors of fake news, Mika turns it around to be I’m very disturbed he doesn't have early onset dementia. That would be an excuse for this horrible behavior. Look, they're the ones that seem like they have dementia because they used to love this guy and now he's evil. He used to be their pal, but they can't make up their mind.
MACDONALD: Eric Trump, the President's son, was on Varney & Company earlier this morning, and I was sitting on set on Varney & Company. He said reporters who were in that press conference, many of them were in that press conference, those same reporters could not keep up with President Trump on the campaign trail. Let's watch. Roll tape.
ERIC TRUMP: Many of the people who are in that pressroom right now were on the campaign. They were traveling with him around and he’d be on his sixth speech of the night or the seventh speech of the day. He had gone to four different states, and they were trying to keep up and they would be on the back corner half sleeping on a backpack; right? Because he had run them into the ground and they weren't the ones up on stage in front of 30,000 people giving the speech; right? I mean, they were just following him and just reporting on him and they were run to the ground.
MACDONALD: What's your reaction?
GRAHAM: Well, yeah, they were also trying to insist he doesn't eat well and he didn't well on the campaign. None of them eat well on the campaign. I think the big contrast to me is all of these people who are so concerned about Trump's health, physical and mental, all accepted the idea that Hillary Clinton fainted because she was overheated when it was 70 degrees out. So I mean, again, these people are not the people who keep us — our democracy out of darkness. They are a bunch of Democratic Party hacks, and they still sound like that.
MACDONALD: You know, Tim, this is all the fallout of Michael Wolff's book; right?
GRAHAM: Yes, which is also full of anonymous sources and unverified allegations, and they call this the state of journalism. They think they are heroes for forwarding stories they cannot prove.
MACDONALD: Tim Graham, good to see you. Thanks for coming on.
GRAHAM: Sure.
