While speaking on Monday afternoon to the editor of the Louisiana newspaper that’s been critical of President Barack Obama’s vacationing in Martha’s Vineyard while the Bayou State floods, MSNBC Live host Stephanie Ruhle wanted to know why it was “so important that the President” tour the devastation because “it costs a lot of money” for him to go anywhere.
Prior to bringing on The Advocate editor Peter Kovacs, the usually fair host (compared to her other colleagues) reminded viewers how Kovacs’s paper “published a scathing editorial, urging the President to cut his Martha’s Vineyard vacation short and visit the state” by invoking, in the words of the paper, “the passive federal response to the state's agony in 2005” with Hurricane Katrina.
Ruhle prefaced her question of liberals suddenly caring about government expenditures and the President’s travels when she hinted at a link between taxpayer money for the President coming and federal aid to Louisiana:
Peter, there's no doubt the devastation is horrific throughout that Baton Rouge, but the President did immediately sign off on the emergency federal funding that you needed, why is it so important that the President comes? It costs a lot of money, a lot of effort, and right now, Louisiana needs that money, needs resources?
Kovacs made clear before reiterating the paper’s calls for Obama to visit that “President Obama's been a good President for Louisiana in this crisis because FEMA is better run” with “professionals unlike under George Bush, but, we also believe that presidential leadership is important.”
“[T]here's no substitute for seeing this yourself. I know we're standing on a street and you can look down this one street, but there are about 100,000, 110,000 homes in the flood zone, so unless you see this yourself and drive through all of these neighborhoods, you just can't appreciate the magnitude of it,” Kovacs added before the rest of the abbreviated interview segment proceeded without any tension or befuddling questions (providing case studies in double standards).
The relevant portion of the transcript from the 1:00 p.m. Eastern hour of MSNBC Live on August 22 can be found below.
MSNBC Live
August 22, 2016
1:28 p.m. Eastern
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Last week's Louisiana's largest newspaper, The Advocate, published a scathing editorial, urging the President to cut his Martha’s Vineyard vacation short and visit the state. “The optics of Obama golfing while Louisiana residents languished in flood water was striking. It was the passive federal response to the state's agony in 2005, a chapter of history no one should ever repeat.” I want to bring in Peter Kovacs, he's the editor for The Advocate. Peter, there's no doubt the devastation is horrific throughout that Baton Rouge, but the President did immediately sign off on the emergency federal funding that you needed, why is it so important that the President comes? It costs a lot of money, a lot of effort, and right now, Louisiana needs that money, needs resources?
PETER KOVACS: Well, you know, President Obama's been a good President for Louisiana in this crisis because FEMA is better run. It's run by professionals unlike under George Bush, but, we also believe that presidential leadership is important, and there's no substitute for seeing this yourself. I know we're standing on a street and you can look down this one street, but there are about 100,000, 110,000 homes in the flood zone, so unless you see this yourself and drive through all of these neighborhoods, you just can't appreciate the magnitude of it.
