MSNBC’s Ari Melber called out former President Donald Trump’s campaign advisor Corey Lewandowski for getting “caught” lying about the ex-president’s involvement in the FBI’s Russia probe back in 2019.
Lewandowski appeared on The Beat on Wednesday, but there was an additional part of his conversation with Melber that the latter covered during his show on Thursday. Melber questioned Lewandowski about his previous appearance on The Beat back in 2019, when Melber asked him about being asked to interfere in the probe by then-President Trump. He denied it, but when he testified before Congress, he admitted he “was inaccurate” during that 2019 interview but felt “no obligation to be honest to the media just because there’s just as dishonest as anybody else.”
Melber asked Lewandowski about this on Wednesday, and Lewandowski refused to address it. He showed an edited version of the exchange:
Melber: Do you admit that you were stating that falsely at the time?Lewandowski: Ari, listen, here’s the deal, man.Melber: If you admit under oath that you were not telling the truth. It is relevant now. And now you seem to be unable to address it.Lewandowski: Ari, listen, we’ve been down this path, okay?Melber: Well, we haven’t. This is your first time back since the path.Lewandowski: That interview was four plus, almost five years ago to the day, to be
very honest with you.Melber: This is now your chance to address this, and you’re not addressing it. That’s fine.
Melber continued:
We gave him the chance, and he is the current representative of Donald Trump’s campaign. That’s what it looks like when you’re caught lying, Corey Lewandowski. That’s what it sounds like when you’re caught lying, Corey Lewandowski. And liars have a way of trying to deflect and run and dodge and do anything other than deal with the fact that he was caught lying. And it would be easy for someone to hear what he said and think, “I guess it was a long time ago, and maybe we move on,” but that’s the strategy. So you have to decide whether you’re going to let them get away with it.In many of these legal probes, they delay, deny, run, and if finally caught under the pressure of subpoena, some of them show up. And when he showed up, he had to admit, as you saw there under oath, he was not honest when asked about that very relevant question about whether Trump was using him to interfere with a DOJ probe. In other words, a big, important thing, not some random item. Last night, we gave Mr. Lewandowski plenty of time to discuss the campaign and other issues. When we got to that one, well, you saw
he just couldn’t answer the question. He couldn’t deal with it. He couldn’t deal with perhaps knowing also that Donald Trump is known to watch these television interviews. And here he was on live TV, unable to account for getting caught lying before.
Watch the video above via MSNBC.