Krauthammer: Administration has 'manipulative relationship with the truth'

close

Video

Special Report Panel: Krauthammer on Geithner memoir

Charles Krauthammer told viewers Monday on 'Special Report with Bret Baier' that a moment recounted in former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's new memoir shows that the Obama administration has a

Charles Krauthammer told viewers Monday on "Special Report with Bret Baier" that a moment recounted in former Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner's new memoir shows that the Obama administration has a "less than arm's length relationship with the truth."

"It's less than arm's length - it is actually a clearly manipulative relationship with the truth," Krauthammer said. "That it is to be used, or abused, or inverted, in order to, quote, 'send a message,' to send a dog signal."

Geithner wrote in his memoir, "Stress Test," that he was pressured by White House senior adviser Dan Pfeiffer before an appearance on Sunday talk shows to downplay the extent to which Social Security spending drives the deficit.

While Geithner believes Social Security is not the main driver of the deficit, he wrote that Pfeiffer told him to say it "didn't contribute" - at all - in order to mollify the Democrat base and send what Pfeiffer called a "dog whistle" to the left.

"Everybody knows that Social Security is in deficit - the Treasury makes it up, and therefore it contributes to the deficit," Krauthammer said. "Geithner knows that, and therefore he wasn't prepared to say an outright lie, and an obvious arithmetic lie."

"You want to send a message to the base, that you're not going to touch Social Security? You simply say, we're not going to touch Social Security, come hell or high water," he added. "You don't have to attach a lie to it in order to send a dog signal."