[More in the cross-post on the MRC's NewsBusters blog.]
From the 11 October 2016 edition of CNN's Anderson Cooper 360:
JOSEPH BORELLI, NEW YORK CITY COUNCIL MEMBER: There was a story that just broke while we were on the air today about a new leak about John Podesta and Jen Palmieri bashing Catholics — saying that Rupert Murdoch — couldn't believe that Rupert Murdoch baptized his children as Catholics. Seventy million Catholics in this country, 90 million evangelicals — I think that — saying that they bastardized their faith is going to help suppress the vote more than anything Donald Trump could do on his own.
ANDERSON COOPER: Paul?
PAUL BEGALA: I actually read that exchange—
CHRISTINE QUINN: Yeah—
BEGALA: They didn't say that — an outsider adviser did. First off, John and Jen are friends of mine, and they're very faithful Catholics. They were not trashing anything. There is — Joe, I presume you're a Catholic — there is a bit of a debate within the Catholic Church, as there is in America, between theological conservatives and theological liberals. Most churches have that. That's all that they were talking about. They were — believe me, they were not trashing the Holy Mother Church. There's no chance that John or Jen would ever do that.
BORELLI: They said, 'They must be attracted to the systematic thought and severely backwards gender relations, and must be totally unaware of Christian democracy.' It's amazing that they — 'it's an amazing bastardization of the faith.' That's — I think that's bashing Catholics. I don't know how you don't see that as bashing Catholics. I think 70 million Catholics, 90 million evangelicals would probably agree with me that that's a pretty bad statement about them—
COOPER: Okay — let Paul respond—
BEGALA: First off, evangelicals and Catholics are very different creatures—
QUINN: Very—
BORELLI: The e-mail goes on to say something about evangelicals, so—
QUINN: Wait, wait! Joe, wait — just stop!
BORELLI: Please, defend it.
BEGALA: They are faithful Catholics themselves. Within the Church, there are debates that go on. An outside adviser wrote in, saying, hey, this is what the conservative Catholics — these particular people, who are pretty famous people — this is what they think, and they had their own private conversation about it.
What we have not talked enough about, though, is that this was a theft. This was a break-in—
BORELLI: Right—
BEGALA: Excuse me — by, our intelligence agencies believe — by the Russians. On July 27, Donald Trump stood up on national television, and he called on the Russians to hack Americans. He invited cyber-crime—
QUINN: This is why the Clinton campaign (unintelligible)—
BEGALA: Excuse me. No, it is a crime. In private, people say all kinds of things — including things about theology. They do — they talk about religion, they talk about politics, they talk about family — right? You say a lot of things in a private e-mail. This particular one I happened to read because I'm a faithful Catholic, and I care deeply about my church and my faith — and those two are good friends of mine, and brother and sister in faith. So it's particularly upsetting to me for somebody to suggest that, somehow, they're attacking the Church — because they were not.