On Wednesday, Ari Melber, host of MSNBC's “The Beat,” threatened Donald Trump campaign adviser Corey Lewandowski with a “defamation case.”
Melber said, “When you were here, we asked you frankly about reports that President Donald Trump tried to use you as an unfair bargaining chip to drop a federal investigation. This is a big issue. We're writing headlines about it. We asked you about it then, and when you faced the House investigation, it came up, too, including in our interview.”
After playing footage of Lewandowski being interviewed on MSNBC and before Congress, Melber asked, “Do you want to go on record as saying that what you said on air was false? People are listening to you about your campaign, and then you lie about other things, so why should they believe you?”
Lewandowski said: “Are you going to say that the only reason Donald Trump had a bandage on his ear was for show? Are you going to say that's a lie? The man was shot in the head and you said the only reason was for show, I'll read you the quote if you like, and then you want to apologize?”
“I know what you're talking about, and we can touch on that at the end of the interview, and we'll come back to that,” Melber said.
After some more back and forth, Melber said, “I quoted a New York Times article that said, 'At the convention, Donald Trump was his greatest weapon.' It was a quote from the New York Times about how he became a key figure in the recovery from a horrific assassination attempt.”
“So you didn't say, 'The bandage is a prop'?” Lewandowski asked.
“I never said that. Mr. Lewandowski, I never said that. That is a false statement,” Melber said.
“Here it is,” Lewandowski said.
“Your statements are false, and if you continue to falsely state that I said that, you could be sued for defamation, because I never said that,” Melber said.
“He owes the president an apology for that,” Lewandowski said.
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