The latest bit of fake news to come out of Florida was that teenager Amanda Gorman’s 2020 Inauguration poem was banned from a school library when the reality was it was moved to the middle school section for “vocabulary” reasons. Not that MSNBC Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace cared. She teamed up with twice failed Georgia Democratic gubernatorial nominee and election denier Stacey Abrams and PoliticsNation host Al Sharpton on Friday to decry the fact that Republicans have not denounced a story that doesn’t exist.
During their conversation, Wallace mourned to Abrams, “But to take a poet and a poem that should be held up across partisan lines and demonize the piece itself and the creator of it, I mean understand from reporting this week it was one parent that complained, but I have not seen one Republican defend Amanda Gorman or her poem.”
Abrams was more than happy to accept Wallace’s false interpretation of events, “What strikes me as so devastating is that it's Amanda and her poem. But she's the tip of a much larger iceberg. We know that there have been indiscriminate attacks on LGBTQ writers, on non-white writers, and that Amanda Gorman’s not immune to this type of attack.”
After Abrams rambled on some more, Wallace turned to Sharpton, “You know, I spend too much time for it to be healthy, but I try to understand where the rot is on the right is and how it happened.”
Fixing the rot at MSNBC and their lack of attention to facts would go a long way towards helping Wallace understand “the right,” but instead, she again wondered why Republicans aren’t running around denouncing this made-up controversy:
This is a piece of American history, recent American history that's given 14 days after an insurrection at the inauguration, at the peaceful transfer of power, never before in modern history has that been in question and I have not been able to find one national Republican saying not only should this stay on the shelves.
Finally getting around to a question, Wallace wondered, “what happens when one of the two parties is willing to let this be the rule of the minority and the tyrants?”
It is true there was a single parent that wanted the poem removed completely, but clearly that request went nowhere so talk of “tyrants” is hyperbolic. Nevertheless, Sharpton responded, “what happens is that we lose a sense of what we are really living through and evolving from and going through. You cannot deal with fruits without dealing with the roots that it came from.”
If Wallace wants to have a conversation on the vocabulary levels of elementary versus middle school students, she can, but that would be rather boring and wouldn’t allow her to demand Republicans denounce Republican-passed legislation.
This segment was sponsored by Sleep Number.
Here is a transcript for the May 26 show:
MSNBC Deadline: White House
5/26/2023
4:42 PM ET
NICOLLE WALLACE: But to take a poet and a poem that should be held up across partisan lines and demonize the piece itself and the creator of it, I mean understand from reporting this week it was one parent that complained, but I have not seen one Republican defend Amanda Gorman or her poem.
STACEY ABRAMS: What strikes me as so devastating is that it's Amanda and her poem. But she's the tip of a much larger iceberg. We know that there have been indiscriminate attacks on LGBTQ writers, on non-white writers, and that Amanda Gorman’s not immune to this type of attack, but more importantly, that a single person can deny an entire slew of children this moment of grace is not just ridiculous, but it should be shameful and I wish that we could get beyond our polarization and return to what we like to call our citizenship.
And citizenship says you do what is best for children regardless of who's delivering that opportunity.
WALLACE: You know, I spend too much time for it to be healthy, but I try to understand where the rot is on the right is and how it happened.
But this story doesn't seem like it's the most important story, but we could argue it should be, because this is a piece of American history, recent American history that's given 14 days after an insurrection at the inauguration, at the peaceful transfer of power, never before in modern history has that been in question and I have not been able to find one national Republican saying not only should this stay on the shelves, but this should be -- I mean, what happens when one of the two parties is willing to let this be the rule of the minority and the tyrants?
AL SHARPTON: Well, what happens is that we lose a sense of what we are really living through and evolving from and going through. You cannot deal with fruits without dealing with the roots that it came from and I think by this poem interpreting for America, not young folks, not old folks, not black folks, for America, the inauguration. We're talking about-- she read this poem at the inauguration of the president of the United States.
