Anderson Cooper Grills A Vague Carter Page About Trump-Russian Connection

Anderson Cooper 360 had Carter Page on the program last Friday to discuss his role in Trump’s campaign, and his connection with Russian officials, even while denying that he ever had any meetings with any of them.

Prior to the interview with Anderson Cooper, Carter Page had been on the PBS Newshour. It was the first time in quite a while that he had been asked about the relationship, and soon after former member of Trump’s National Security Council, Gen. Michael Flynn, had resigned, over what many felt were over his secret calls with Russian officials, as reported by the New York Times.

Both Anderson Cooper and Carter Page are members of groups engaged in public combat with each other, where Cooper is with CNN, a news network that President Trump has attacked as “fake news,” and Page as a former Trump campaign supporter, who was as combative in the interview as those in the Trump group.

The media and President Trump’s followers within and outside the White House have been battling over more reports of his ties to Russia, over which Donald Trump has said are untrue despite the fact that Flynn had resigned over them. This week, Jeff Sessions, a Trump supporter and attorney general for the Department of Justice, recused himself from an investigation over that connection, as reported by the New York Times.

At the beginning of the interview, Anderson brought up the interview Carter did with Judy Woodruff and how he was contradicting himself, saying that they met with officials when he initially said that he hadn’t. Carter Page gave an example to Anderson Cooper using the analogy of meeting with each other at the gym, where they acknowledged each other but it was nothing like a meeting.

Carter Page did follow up his answer to Anderson Cooper saying that he would not disclose details from off-the-record meetings.

Later in the questioning, Page said that there were “more important” issues to discuss, as well as saying that the word “meeting” meant something else in Russian than the word “rally” did anywhere else, suggesting that what he was saying had been misinterpreted.

Anderson Cooper also wanted to get answers about the role that Page played in Donald Trump’s campaign last year.

What Anderson Cooper was referring to were reports that Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid wanted intelligence officials to investigate Carter Page — according to Yahoo News — about the connection between the Trump campaign and Russian officials, who had been accused of hacking the Democratic National Committee servers months earlier.

Carter Page continued to deny the reports, saying that they were lies and at times laughed it off.

Carter Page: ‘Clinton Regime’ Behind Martin Luther King Jr.-Like FBI Trump Probe https://t.co/khrhbuKq3H

— The Inquisitr (@theinquisitr) February 16, 2017

Earlier in the interview, Page said that there more important matters to contend with, in regard to attacks from Democrats. He fired back at the attacks last year saying that they were discriminating against him for being Catholic and being male.

When he was pressed on this, he said that he didn’t want to discuss details.

However, the moment in the interview that got many on social media to take notice was when Anderson Cooper attempted to get Carter Page to say something negative about Russia and their interference in the 2016 presidential election.

When Carter Page started to focus on the Clinton campaign by saying that they had influenced the intelligence community to run an investigation on Trump, Anderson Cooper said that if he could do that, why can he not believe the same intelligence community when they say that Russians hacked the DNC. Here is the interview in its entirety between Anderson Cooper and Carter Page, followed by panel discussion.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WimIfdChUj4&t=1765s

[Featured Image by Pavel Golovkin/AP Images]