On Monday’s “The Ingraham Angle,” guest John Yoo suggested involvement in “espionage” in a discussion of Ukrainian-born American veteran Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, who is appearing before impeachment hearings Tuesday.
By that morning, Yoo and Laura Ingraham were being rebuked across the networks.
No one on Monday’s Fox News program offered any proof of “espionage” as it related to Vindman, an official in President Trump’s administration. The veteran and Purple Heart recipient is an expert on Ukraine on the National Security Council as well as a Ukrainian refugee himself.
When CNN’s John Berman rolled the clip for the “New Day” audience Tuesday, he cautioned “view discretion” because, he said, it was “disgusting.”
On MSNBC, Joe Scarborough labeled it “idiocy.”
Notably, Ingraham and her guest on Fox News were not the only ones to bring a conversation about whether Vindman has dual loyalty to the airwaves. Also on “New Day” Tuesday, former GOP Rep. Sean Duffy said, “He has an affinity for the Ukraine. He speaks Ukrainian. He came from the country.”
“Alexander Vindman just entered the Capitol in full uniform to testify in the impeachment inquiry,” reported CNN’s Abby Phillip in mid-morning Tuesday. “Meantime, conservatives on cable TV are questioning his loyalty to the United States.”
Later on Tuesday, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace went on-air to deride the unproven “espionage” claims. Responding to a clip of Yoo saying, “Some people might call that espionage,” Wallace said, “Except those people aren’t chickensh-t like the three of you and they know that he passed a background check that the president’s daughter and son-in-law didn’t.”
Goodness gracious @NicolleDWallace pic.twitter.com/r47AcZg92M
— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 29, 2019
A representative for Fox News did not return a request for comment.
For the record: This article was updated to include Nicolle Wallace’s on-air statement on Tuesday.