“Victim of Torture” - Lesley Stahl SHOCKING Question Of Hamas Hostage
Episode Stats
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Summary
Leslie Stahl's question to freed Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel has gone viral and people are questioning why she asked the question. Is it a political question or is it a question that needs to be asked to a terrorist victim?
Transcript
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Let me kind of go to a clip that's gone viral, folks, in the last couple of days.
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It's Leslie Stahl's viral clip from 60 Minutes interview that people are reacting to.
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Even Scott Jennings had to say some stuff about this earlier.
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This is a 60-minute interview with freed Israeli-American hostage Keith Siegel
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when viral after she asked the following question.
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The terrorists became very mean and very cruel.
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Do you think they starved you or they just didn't have food?
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No, I think they starved me and they would often eat in front of me and not offer me food.
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Do you think they starved you or they just didn't have food?
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Do you think they starved you or they just didn't have food?
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Okay, to everybody that's watching this, okay, if you were a journalist, would you ever in a million years ask that question?
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Do you think they starved you or they just didn't have food?
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And the kid is an anorexic, whatever, 70-pound, 5'8 kid.
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And a reporter asked, do you think they starved you or they just didn't have any food?
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It's a bit of a weird question to be asking on 60 Minutes and another one of those reasons why they're losing credibility.
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Vinny, your thoughts when you see something like this.
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I mean, when I heard this yesterday, I didn't believe it because I was like, no, this has to be other AI or something.
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But it's one of the most dumbest, tone-deaf questions to ask a torture victim who's been captive from Hamas for over, what, 480 days?
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And, like, imagine being tortured, starved, and beaten down by terrorists and you come back.
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And it's like either she's pretending to be clueless or she's making the bad guys look good.
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Either way, it's just another reminder I want everybody to know that's why mainstream media is on its last leg and dying because of that type of stuff.
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How insensitive is that to ask someone that literally just survived?
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Probably one of the worst experiences that him or anybody else is going to deal with.
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Do you think she's asking a political question?
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Or maybe, let's be fair to her, do you think she's asking a question that she really was thinking about?
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Like, do you think she's asking the question that she really thought maybe the terrorists were starving and so they didn't even have any food to give to you?
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Because if you're a terrorist, do you think you have a hard time getting access to anything?
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You're willing to do anything and everything at all costs to get food, money, shelter.
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He goes, no, they're eating in front of me and teasing me and taunting me.
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I wanted to make sure I understood context because I had a real reaction at first.
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And I think this shows, in my opinion, I think this shows she has a predisposition.
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You can always tell when you interview somebody or you talk to somebody, you ask one or two questions and they give you one or two answers.
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And you're like, okay, I can see which way this person leans.
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We've all said that in our minds when we've interviewed somebody for a job or you've spoken to somebody you just met.
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I see which way this person, I see which way the wind blows with this person.
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All those, all those phrases that run through our heads.
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In this, the word that came to my head, I said, wow, I wonder if Leslie Stahl doesn't have a predisposition that favors the Palestinian situation and the Hamas and Gaza situation.
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And so her, she doesn't even realize it, but her questions are coming out, showing doubt to the other side because she's got this predisposition.
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In the old West, they used to say, you walk into a court and if the judge is already frowning, forget it.
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It says, when you walked in the court, what the judge, he was frowning.
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She's had a distinguished career, regardless of what you think of her individual politics that she's displayed.
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But it just felt to me, Pat, that she had a predisposition and it's almost just off the top of her head and reflexively coming out.
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And it was disappointing because she's talking.
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She's speaking directly to a victim of torture, imprisonment, who is just praising his personal God that he's out alive.
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So, for some reason, I'm actually not that offended by her question.
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So, she's interviewing a hostage who was released.
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And the tone of the questioning is maybe what I would find an issue with.
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But she's asking that question to the wrong person.
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So, the question of whether Israel is having a blockade of food and goods into Gaza certainly could be had because they are.
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Why would you blockade a country from importing goods?
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Because oftentimes those goods are terrorist items.
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So, it's like, you know, the whole conversation that we're having here in America is building a wall.
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Why do we want to build a wall to maybe stop illegal things from coming in the country?
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Whether it's people, whether it's trafficking, whether it's drugs, whether it's guns.
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We all know how powerful the cartel is in Mexico.
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You know, people in Mexico were, I think, in one week, like 20 politicians.
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Yeah, we're no longer running, if you know what I mean.
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So, you know, last week, it was something very, very, very unique that happened in Gaza.
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There was a protest against a government in that region from the Palestinians.
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And who do you think they were protesting against?
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So, you hear this conversation and this slogan, free Palestine.
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I wonder what happened to them after this, though.
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So, you hear Palestine will be free from the river to the sea.
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Often, when people tell me free Palestine, I say, yes, from Hamas, right?
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Free the people of Iran from the Mullahs and the Ayatollahs.
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Free Iraq from Al-Qaeda and ISIS, whatever it may be.
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It's these terrorist groups that are effectively terrorizing the people.
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And it's the armies, the democratic elected armies, whether it's Israel, whether it's the U.S.,
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whether it's even the people of Lebanon, who are like, yeah, we just want to not have terrorism in our country.
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We had a meeting with, I won't say his name, someone pretty high up in the Middle East, Saudi.
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There's a sect of Islam in Saudi specifically called Wahhabism.
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And Wahhabism is a very strict, literal definition of Islam.
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To my Muslim friends out there, if I'm not getting the definition right, forgive me.
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But MBS, Crown Prince MBS, basically, when he took office, he's like, no, no, no.
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Because they understand the threat that Islamic extremism and jihadism brings to their own countries.
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Remember, we played a clip of, I think it might have been from the UAE.
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And he was giving an interview about how the West is doomed because they're coddling illegal immigration.
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And he's like, you know, I'm going to say it in English about what the West doesn't understand and Europe doesn't understand.
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He goes, no, I'm going to say it in English so you don't get this right.
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He's like, if you don't stamp out Islamic extremism, they're going to get you.
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But to this lady's point, interview a politician with that line of questioning, not a literal hostage who probably had no clue what was going on anyway.
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Well, her predisposition that Tom was talking about, she's the one that tried to fact check Trump.
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She's the one that was like, they didn't spine.
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And he was like, Leslie, what are you talking about?
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It's like, no, no, Leslie, you have your freaking stance and we know who the hell you are.
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So, I mean, tone deaf and just, it's unbelievable.
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What was it to you that was like, nah, this is very inappropriate?
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A person just came from, you know, being held hostage and you want to ask him a question
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Go back to the clip and I'm just purely trying to pay attention to the words she used.
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So, if you go to the clip and start it from the beginning, Rob, so we can just see it.
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The terrorists became very mean and very cruel.
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The terrorists became very mean and very cruel.
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Do you think they starved you or they just didn't have food?
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Can you go look up the definition of terrorists or to terrorize, to terrorize, okay?
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Create a state of extreme fear and distress in filled with terror, right?
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So, what is a terrorist willing to use to get what they want?
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That means a terrorist is going to find their food, the women, anything they want.
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They're willing to do everything and anything at all costs to hold you hostage.
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If that's the true definition of terrorists, what do you mean maybe they don't have food?
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They're going to get their food one way or another.
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They're going to get the girls one way or another because they're willing to terrorize.
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So, if he was talking about, if she was talking about Palestinians holding him hostage because they're upset at him for being Jewish or idea for whatever.
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Maybe Palestinians don't have food because a blockade and the food is not coming in.
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This is, again, my opinion I'm giving to this here.
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So, I thought it was a very weird question for her to ask.
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