President Donald Trump's deputy press secretary Raj Shah didn't fare well during a Monday interview with CNN's Chris Cuomo.
Shah insisted that Cuomo play the recent tape of Trump talking about how he trusts the intelligence agencies to give him the proper information. It flies in the face of a year's worth of attacks against the intelligence community for the conclusion that Russia meddled.
Cuomo ultimately claimed that the Trump administration sounded like the Hillary Clinton campaign complaining about the FBI when they were angry with the findings.
Shah took that as an opportunity to pivot to complain about Hillary Clinton talking to the FBI without being under oath. Cuomo nailed him on it, saying that Clinton never needed to be under oath because it's a crime to lie to the FBI.
"Then where's the transcript?" Shah asked, claiming there was no record of the questioning.
"You find it! You're in the government, you bring it to us!" Cuomo clapped back, he maintained that there were documents about the questioning.
"Are you unhappy that they said there's a secret organization when there isn't one? Are you unhappy about that?" Cuomo asked. "Gates, Gowdy, Sen. [Ron] Johnson — why didn’t you call those guys out and say, ‘Don’t do that when you don’t have proof.’”
Shah said that it was because the GOP men "were raising very legitimate questions."
Cuomo took issue with the claim, saying that the men were creating a conspiracy theory out of a text message they didn't even understand the context of. So, Shah pivoted to saying that the GOP members can defend themselves.
"Do you trust the FBI?" Cuomo asked, while the GOP is escalating probes into law enforcement.
"Yes," Shah said, citing the new FBI director, who has already threatened to quit. Cuomo asked why the president hasn't said that publicly, but Shah attacked Cuomo for interrupting him and never answered the question.
Shah was asked about whether or not Trump would testify before Mueller.
"I'm saying I'm just not qualified to speak to whether or not or how --" Shah said.
"You're the deputy press secretary," Cuomo noted. "Who's qualified if you're not, Raj?"
Shah conceded it -- but didn't have any information. He also revealed that Trump hasn't seen the intelligence memo about the FISA warrant that he says he wants to see released to the public. Cuomo wondered why and Shah said it was because he's preparing for the State of the Union.
Watch the smackdown below:
Part 1:
Part 2:
