Paul Ryan blames “earpiece problem” while dodging question about Donald Trump’s wiretap claim

| 1:34 pm EDT March 16, 2017
Dear Palmer Report readers, we all understand the difficult era we're heading into. Major media outlets are caving to Trump already. Even the internet itself and publishing platforms may be at risk. But Palmer Report is nonetheless going to lead the fight. We're funding our 2025 operating expenses now, so we can keep publishing no matter what happens. I'm asking you to contribute if you can, because the stakes are just so high. You can donate here.

The Senate Intelligence Committee issued a bipartisan statement today confirming that there is no evidence to support Donald Trump’s claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. This came one day after the House Intelligence Committee affirmed the same. Speaker Paul Ryan appeared on Meet The Press today, and when he was asked whether Trump is lying, he tried to dodge the question by blaming his own earpiece.

Paul Ryan presumably booked the interview with MSNBC host Chuck Todd today in a last ditch effort at propping up his sinking American Health Care Plan. But the first question he faced was about Trump’s wiretap claim. Todd pointed out that the bipartisan Senate Intel Committee had just unanimously shot it down. Then he played a clip of White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer trying to insist during a press briefing that Trump had meant something different than “wiretap” when he said “wiretap.”

After Paul Ryan danced around the topic for a bit, Chuck Todd asked the following question: “Can we just not believe our president?” That prompted Ryan to fumble through an evasive answer before declaring “I was having an earpiece problem” as a way of trying to avoid giving a straight answer. Ryan then went on to try to generically write off Donald Trump’s ongoing unsupported claims as being a function of the social media world in which we live in. This prompted an exasperated and laughing Todd to declare “Twitter doesn’t mean you can make things up!”

After Paul Ryan said that he can’t address most of what Donald Trump tweets because he doesn’t pay attention to it, Todd countered with “So your advice is to ignore some things the president says?” Ryan had no proper answer. We’ll add video of the on-air exchange when it becomes available. Contribute to Palmer Report