The fact that Steve Bannon last year served a four-month prison sentence for defying a Congressional subpoena didn’t deter Congressman Cline from a third appearance on Bannon’s “War Room” podcast on March 25.
Bannon asked Cline about the disclosure by Jeffrey Goldberg of The Atlantic magazine that Trump’s national security adviser Michael Waltz used an unsecured commercial app to discuss plans for attacking Houthis in Yemen– a discussion that included specific details of the attack before it happened– and that Goldberg was accidentally included in the chat.
Instead of being outraged by a security breach that endangered the lives of American forces (as he would have been if it happened under a Democratic administration), Cline dismissed the reports about it as “a lot of noise” and blamed the media for “spinning this up.” He noted that President Trump said he had confidence in Waltz, as if this was enough to reassure us. Cline went on to put more blame on Goldberg than anyone else.
Referring to Cline’s Sixth District constituents, Bannon asked Cline “where are their heads at” after Trump’s early days in office.
Cline replied, “They could not be more excited about this administration, what it’s accomplished… For whatever their concerns were, they are excited about the steps this administration has taken.”
How Cline reached this conclusion is anyone’s guess. I doubt it’s based on phone calls and emails to his offices. And if he thinks a few selected meetings with mostly sympathetic people are an indication of widespread excitement about what Trump is doing, he needs a reality check.
Some face-to-face town hall meetings with his constituents would likely help with that.
Cline Watch 