In the last several weeks, now that the election is over, MSNBC production teams have been struggling to keep track of which of the network's pretend Republican analysts are actually still identifying as Republicans.
Most recently, on Sunday's PoliticsNation show, host Al Sharpton incorrectly identified MSNBC political analyst Elise Jordan as a "Republican strategist," as did the chyron, even though she has previously admitted on the network that she is no longer a Republican. But, on the Sunday show, Jordan did not even bother to correct him.
At 5:10 p.m. Eastern, before a discussion of President Donald Trump's attempts at contesting the election, Sharpton posed his first question to Jordan as he set up the segment:
Let's bring in our political strategist who is, of course, Chris Lu, who is a former deputy secretary of Labor in the Obama administration, and Elise Jordan, who is a Republican strategist. Let me go to you first, Elise. What do you make of a variety of reports published just in the past couple days which describe not only Trump's selfish state of mind but his concrete plans to hold on to power and destroy our democracy? I just have to put it that way.
The disaffected former Republican made no correction of how she was identified as she responded:
You know, Rev, I can't say I was the least bit surprised. I think the problem the entire time with so many of us looking and assessing Donald Trump's rise to the presidency and presidency is a failure of imagination. And the fact that Donald Trump is being completely delusional and speculating about appointing Sidney Powell, who already was fired once from his legal effort to be some kind of special prosecutor and pursue this fake mission of figuring out, you know, some way to salvage the vote for Donald Trump.
It's just absolutely crazy. And we have to call it what it is. It's crazy. Donald Trump is more delusional with every passing day. The fact that he even thinks that there is an iota of a chance that he will still be President come January 20th shows just how delusional Donald Trump is at this point in the game.
Jordan never got around to correcting the record even though the segment lasted eight minutes as she was also identified on screen as a "Republican strategist." The MSNBC analyst had two other turns to speak as she shared time with former Barack Obama administration official Chris Lu. In his final question, after failing to inform viewers that she is no longer a Republican, Sharpton asked her to comment on what the future of the GOP might be: "How does, Elise, the Republican party put Humpty Dumpty back together again after this President?"
A couple of weeks ago, on Saturday, December 5, Jordan was also mistaken for a Republican by MSNBC weekend host Alex Witt. Incorrectly believing that she had at least one Republican guest out of three panel members as they discussed Republican support for President Trump contesting the election, Witt posed: "Can I ask our Republican, Elise, what is the goal? What are they doing? Why don't they just get on board and accept reality?"
After a pause as Jordan failed to respond, Witt added: "Elise, that's to you, if you didn't hear me. Sorry."
The MSNBC analyst responded: "First of all, I do want to say that I am an independent now, that I've shed the Republican label, Alex."
Jordan had previously admitted she is not a Republican as far back as August when she appeared on MSNBC's AM Joy. Now that Trump lost, the network's stable of Never Trumpers isn't pretending to be Republican any more.
Just last week, frequent guest Rick Wilson was misidentified as a "Republican strategist" on both Deadline: White House and The 11th Hour with Brian Williams, leading him to correct the hosts, and MSNBC political analyst Steve Schmidt announced that he had registered as a Democrat, having previously switched from Republican to independent.
The episode of MSNBC's PoliticsNation was sponsored in part by Fidelity. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC
PoliticsNation
December 20, 2020
5:10 p.m.
AL SHARPTON: Let's bring in our political strategist who is, of course, Chris Lu, who is a former deputy secretary of labor in the Obama administration, and Elise Jordan, who is a Republican strategist. Let me go to you first, Elise. What do you make of a variety of reports published just in the past couple days which describe not only Trump's selfish state of mind but his concrete plans to hold on to power and destroy our democracy? I just have to put it that way.
ELISE JORDAN, MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, Rev, I can't say I was the least bit surprised. I think the problem the entire time with so many of us looking and assessing Donald Trump's rise to the presidency and presidency is a failure of imagination. And the fact that Donald Trump is being completely delusional and speculating about appointing Sidney Powell, who already was fired once from his legal effort to be some kind of special prosecutor and pursue this fake mission of figuring out, you know, some way to salvage the vote for Donald Trump.
It's just absolutely crazy. And we have to call it what it is. It's crazy. Donald Trump is more delusional with every passing day. The fact that he even thinks that there is an iota of a chance that he will still be President come January 20th shows just how delusional Donald Trump is at this point in the game.
SHARPTON: You know, Chris, the same for you. We hear Trump was thinking of appointing one of his former lawyers -- as Elise just referred to, the election conspiracy theorist Sidney Powell -- as a special counsel to investigate his debunked accusations of election fraud. We hear he pushed America's second highest ranking official at the Department of Homeland Security to seize state voting machines. We hear he wanted to possibly impose martial law and deploy the military to, quote, "rerun the election." And all of that while the United States is dealing with a foreign cyberattack and a pandemic. I mean, how do we -- this would be like a reality show if we were not talking about he's still in charge for 30 more days. How do we deal with 30 more days like this?
(...)
SHARPTON: How does, Elise, the Republican party put Humpty Dumpty back together again after this President?
JORDAN: Rev, I don't see how you do. I see a lot of Republican leaders right now who are trying to be versions of Donald Trump. You look at so many politicians who want to capture some of the magic that Donald Trump had with the Republican base. And no one does it with the authenticity, and it just is, you know, seems to be a flop.
So I wonder how with Donald Trump, who could care less about the Republican party, as he demonstrates in his willingness to fundraise for his own PAC over the Georgia special election, and his willingness to, you know, basically tell Republican voters that he doesn't care all that much about what happens down there, you see how this isn't going to be a strong legacy of the Republican party that Donald Trump is promoting. It's always, always going to be about Donald Trump himself.
