CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins pounded former Trump Attorney General Bill Barr with a sustained grilling challenging Barr’s assertion that President Joe Biden is a greater “threat to democracy” than ex-President Donald Trump.
Barr was in the hot seat for a two-segment interview on Friday night’seditionof CNN’sThe Source with Kaitlan Collins, the first segment of which featured intense exchanges about Trump’s various criminal trials and his stunning Supreme Court appeal.
But the second segment made the first segment look like a little peanut, as Collins relentlessly challenged Barr’s support for Trump’s presidential bid and his claim about the “threat” posed by Biden. Some highlights:
BILL BARR: So it’s not about me. I think that, that I’ve said this all along. If faced with a choice between two people, neither of which I think should be president, I feel it’s my duty to pick the person who I think would do the least damage to the country. And I think Trump would do less damage than Biden. And I think all this stuff about a threat to democracy, I think the real threat to democracy is the progressive movement. And in the Biden administration.
KAITLAN COLLINS: The Biden administration, or President Biden himself.
BILL BARR: Biden’s, Biden’s support for the progressive agenda.
KAITLAN COLLINS: I think a lot of people hear that. And the case that we just talked about that went before the Supreme Court, essentially, and say, how can you see that and say that Biden is a greater threat to democracy?
BILL BARR: Well, where are we losing our freedoms? We have our freedoms being constrained that they’re being constrained by, the progressive government and, you know, democracy especially, you know, from the Anglosphere democracies, the Five Eyes and so forth. The threats never been for autocratic government on the right.
KAITLAN COLLINS: But how specifically, is Biden threatening democracy?
BILL BARR: The threat to freedom and democracy has always been on the left. It’s the collectivist, socialist, agenda. And that is where we’re losing our freedom. Parents are losing the freedom to control, their children’s education. And, you know, people can’t speak their mind without losing their jobs and things like that. This is worse than the McCarthy era. Where is that coming from? It’s not coming from the right.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Those two things that you just noted there, you believe are worse than a president of the United States trying to subvert the will of the people by overturning the results, no question.
BILL BARR: No, I think I think a country well, all the things together, like we’re not enforcing our borders, we have open borders, we have lawlessness, in our cities, we have regulations coming fast and fierce. So telling people what kind of stoves they can use and what kinds of cars they have to drive and, you know, eliminating cars and and so forth. Yeah, those are those are the threats to democracy.
KAITLAN COLLINS: But but President Biden is not in control of what some school boards across the country.
BILL BARR: He’s using the administrative–
KAITLAN COLLINS: You can make that argument, but.
BILL BARR: He’s making.
KAITLAN COLLINS: How is that the same thing?
BILL BARR: Major changes are being made in our country without without the democratic process. And they’re being made by bureaucrats in these agencies.
KAITLAN COLLINS: You, okay? Pause! You cannot argue that Republicans across the country are not doing that as well. My own hometown. There’s a huge fight at the library over which books kids can read. This is not something that is a single-party fight.
BILL BARR: Do you think there are? Don’t you think there should be some limits on on what people are able to read? I agree, young people.
KAITLAN COLLINS: I just think people look at what you’re saying and they don’t. And maybe, maybe even Republicans who have concerns about what’s happening with school boards or, you know, the culture and don’t maybe abortion, even don’t equate that with with January 6th and Trump’s efforts. When you told him the the election was not stolen and he still went out there and said it was stolen and led a lot of people to believe that they don’t, those things aren’t equal. It feels like a false equivalency.
BILL BARR: Well, I disagree, I think, and I think, the country is much more susceptible to losing freedoms by the excesses of the left, and they have been steadily and that’s clear. People lose their jobs. Kids can’t speak out in the classroom. They have to go along with what the professor says in order to get good grades and so forth. It’s become like Stepford Nation being directed by, the progressive elites.
…
KAITLAN COLLINS: It is what you said recently, which was that, you know, the conduct that was involved with Donald Trump, you said trying to subvert and prevent the progress, the execution of probably the most important process we have, which is the peaceful transfer of power after an election. Name one thing that Biden has done that’s worse than that.
BILL BARR: I think this whole administration is a disaster for the.
KAITLAN COLLINS: Is worse than subverting the peaceful transfer of power.
BILL BARR: Did he succeed?
KAITLAN COLLINS: Only because Vice President Mike pence stood in the way? And now the people who are lining up again say that they will not do what Mike pence did.
BILL BARR: Look, I was very loud and saying, I thought it was a whole the whole episode was shameful. And I’m and I’m very troubled by it. And that’s why it’s not an easy decision. But I think when you have a Hobson’s choice, you have to pick the lesser of two evils.
KAITLAN COLLINS: You don’t see this as the definition of putting party over country.
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KAITLAN COLLINS: So just to be clear, you’re voting for someone who you believe tried to subvert the peaceful transfer of power that can’t even achieve his own policies, that lied about the election, even after his attorney general told him that the election wasn’t stolen. And as the former chief law enforcement in this country, you’re going to vote for someone who is facing 88 criminal counts.
