CNN‘s Chris Wallace Roasts Trump Cognitive Test In MSNBC Hit When Asked About Confrontations With Ex-Presidents

CNN anchor Chris Wallace cited his roast of former President Donald Trump over his cognitive test when MSNBC’s Ari Melber asked him about a confrontation with former President Bill Clinton .

Wallace — who hosts the Max series Who’s Talking to Chris Wallace and CNN’s The Chris Wallace Show — has been on an extensive media tour to promote his new book Countdown 1960: The Behind-the-Scenes Story of the 312 Days that Changed America’s Politics Forever .

That tour took Wallace to a rival network on Wednesday night’s edition of MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber , during which Melber asked about an intense exchange with President Clinton during Wallace’s Fox News tenure.

In the ensuing conversation, Wallace gave his Trump moment as an example of reporting without concern for partisan “sides”:

MELBER: You have interviewed seven presidents. There’s no automatic Sunday show dispensation. You have to earn every one of those interviews through your work, efforts, reputation.

And so, I want to look at one that I think you remember was made a splash at the time. Bill Clinton, who served as president, going back and forth at — with you about national security and bin Laden, important heavy stuff.

For those who don’t remember, let’s take a look at that.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

WALLACE: Didn’t you do more to put bin Laden and al Qaeda out of business when you were president?

BILL CLINTON, FORMER U.S. PRESIDENT: I’m being asked this on the Fox network. You did Fox’s bidding on the show. You did your nice little conservative hit job on me.

WALLACE: Whoa —

(CROSSTALK)

CLINTON: What I want to know is —

(CROSSTALK)

CLINTON: Wait —

WALLACE: Wait a minute, sir. I’m asking you a question. You don’t that’s a legitimate question?

CLINTON: No, it was a perfectly legitimate question, but I want to know how many people in the Bush administration you asked this question of?

WALLACE: Have you ever watched “Fox News Sunday”, sir?

CLINTON: I don’t believe you ask them that.

WALLACE: We asked plenty of questions.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

MELBER: Educate us about how you approached that, how it feels in the moment. He was alleging that you were somehow biased and that you were raising things in a political manner or feeding the audience so it would repeat back a political view of things. You had it back and forth, but since I have you here, first time ever interviewing you, and you’ve done that with more than one president. Tell us about it.

WALLACE: Well, it was a pretty memorable interview. If you go on YouTube, last time I checked which was a number of years ago, there were 10 million views.

You know, to put it in context, there had just been a docu-drama on ABC called “The Path to 9/11”, and they had been very critical of — of Bill Clinton and, in fact, there’ also been a Pulitzer Prize-winning book by Lawrence Wright called the path — “The Looming Tower” that were critical of Clinton and said that he hadn’t done enough to put bin Laden and al-Qaeda out of business when he was president.

So I simply asked him a question. You know, that’s what we do for a living.

I later asked Terry McAuliffe, I said, have you ever seen him sort of fly off like that? And he said, have I ever seen him fly off? That’s — we call that the purple rage in the White House.

And —

(CROSSTALK)

MELBER: Did you feel anything in the moment? Did you — did you feel something that then you had to screen to be professional or you’ve done this so much, it was just one more day?

WALLACE: Well, no. I mean, it wasn’t just another interview when you’re getting called out — even though he was the former not the current president of the United States. But look, I — you could put up clips of me with Donald Trump in 2020 —

MELBER: Sure.

WALLACE: — when I talked to him about the cognitive test, and I said, you know, you talk about the fact that you aced it, I mean, it wasn’t so hard, Mr. President, they have a picture of an animal and you have to identify it as an elephant.

I mean, that’s what we do for a living and you know, we’re there to seek the truth, to seek heat, not — I mean, rather light not heat.

MELBER: Yeah.

WALLACE: And, you know, not to make friends and not to take — and, Ari, not to take sides. To be equally tough, whether it’s conservative Republican or a liberal Democrat.

Watch above via MSNBC’s The Beat with Ari Melber .