Chris Hayes Blows Trump’s ‘America First’ Myth To Pieces With Brilliant Fact Check

MSNBC’s Chris Hayes blew Donald Trump’s “America First” myth to pieces on Wednesday, laying out all the ways the president and his inner circle have repeatedly put their own financial interests above the United States.

According to Chris Hayes, despite Trump’s pledge to put the United States first, “It’s quite clear now that in many cases, America came in second to the interests of the president and his associates.”

Video:

Hayes laid out the facts:

It’s quite clear now that in many cases America came in second to the interests of the president and his associates. His national security adviser Michael Flynn was secretly being paid by Turkey during the campaign and into the transition, pushing for more favorable policy towards the Turkish strongman in an op-ed he published on Election Day. Paul Manafort, the president’s former campaign chairman running the campaign at a certain point, was deeply entangled with Russia and Ukrainian interests, which he apparently tried to appease by leveraging his role running a presidential campaign … Michael Cohen was reportedly pitching the government of Qatar at Trump Tower during the transition, soliciting a $1 million payment in exchange for access to the new administration. It turns out the president’s own son, Donald Trump Jr. wasn’t just interested in what Russia could do for the campaign. He also met with an Israeli, an emissary from the Saudi government and the United Arab Emirates in the months before the election. These are just the instances we know about, what’s publicly come to light. Today we learned of what looks like yet another example of the president’s inner circle selling off U.S. foreign policy. BBC reporting, citing sources in Kiev close to those involved, the president of Ukraine secretly funneled $400,000 to Michael Cohen to arrange a meeting at the White House.

Just today, as the MSNBC host noted, it was reported that Michael Cohen was paid $400,000 by Ukraine for access to Trump.

Cohen received the payment last summer to arrange a meeting between Trump and Ukraine president Petro Poroshenko.

These crimes aren’t getting enough attention

The ongoing investigation into possible Russian collusion and obstruction of justice is critical, but it also has a way of distracting from other criminal activities on the part of the Trump team.

In this case, whether the interested parties received the access they paid for is irrelevant.

As conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin noted on MSNBC on Wednesday, “It doesn’t really matter, I think, whether they were successful or not successful. It’s illegal to solicit the help during the campaign and if anything was exchanged of value later on, that is just out and out bribery.”

“They were … bargaining away American foreign policy to the highest bidders,” she added.

It’s likely that Robert Mueller and other investigators are looking into these very payments as we speak. But in the meantime, the least we can all do is agree that Trump has never – and never will – put America above his own selfish interests.

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Sean Colarossi

Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.

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