With hours like Wednesday night from 7:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Eastern, MSNBC’s Joy Reid will have the hour long held by Chris Matthews sealed up. Engaging in irresponsible behavior, lying to viewers, and bringing out a parade of guests to serve as clapping seals, Reid did nothing to responsibly inform the public about the coronavirus and instead fear-monger thanks to her hatred for President Trump and Fox News.
Reid’s lies began seconds into the show, warning that “we’re witnessing in real time how the quality of leadership in a country matters” and “[i]t matters how transparent and, frankly, competent a government is in a time of crisis like this” because Trump has gone from “tossing it off as a political hoax to just seemingly scrambling.”
She added that Trump has “caused” “damage” to the country “by the confusion his own administration's erratic response has caused.”
Speaking soon after to Governor Gina Raimondo (D-RH), Reid insisted with help from a Politico article that there are two separate “sort[s] of attitude[s] toward this in red America versus blue America” with the implication being those on the right incapable of dealing with the virus or being too dumb to understand.
In reaction to basic suggestions about limiting human interactions from former Planned Parenthood head Dr. Leana Wen, Reid again lied about Trump thinking this was “a hoax”: “Yeah and believe that it's real. Like, don’t believe that it’s a hoax, even if an official in, let’s say, government tells you.”
And then in going to the first commercial break, Reid gloated that “the coronavirus crisis is once again laying bear Donald Trump's glaring inadequacies as President.”
Without citing any evidence and thus dismissing daily White House briefings and warnings from career government officials, Reid argued that the White House have “been much more focused on downplaying the severity of the coronavirus outbreaks in order to protect the stock market, the economy, and Trump politically.”
Naturally, a Never Trumper joined the circus with David Jolly suiting up for the team (click “expand”):
[I]n his stubbornness, he is yet to realize there is no political win in a public health crisis. There is none and he has masterfully been able to work a political win out of even the most dire situations, including impeachment. Among his base, they saw it as a win, he beat the deep state, if you will. There is no win in a moment of a public health crisis because the American people are scared and Donald Trump continues to view this through the lens of an economic crisis. It is why he has focused so much of his attention on it. Consider the actual emergency package that Congress passed to address the public health needs of the nation. The White House requested about $2 billion. It was not a serious request. Congress said, no, we need $8 billion.
The President wants to get to the crisis for tax cuts and good for even Republican senators pushing back on this because we do not need corporate tax cuts to artificially stimulate a relatively strong economy. What we need specifically is assistance for those workers who are displaced for coronavirus related job losses and job insecurity and, frankly, food insecurity among communities when we see schools close, what happens to those families that rely on schools for 100 percent food vouchers for breakfast and lunch. That's where the targeted assistance needs to be. Donald Trump needs to realize if he wants to fix the economy, fix the public health crisis and tonight, address solely the public health crisis, the economy will follow along as they see confidence in the health response.
Reid then played a montage of how Trump’s comments have evolved from January to this week on the coronavirus, which was not entirely dissimilar from how much of the world viewed the situation in going from a concern in China to a global crisis.
Before continuing on, Reid attacked Fox News and suggested that they’re not taking the virus seriously: “[W]e should note his favorite news channel has been — it’s echoing him.”
For her next interview, Reid spoke with both PBS NewsHour’s Yamiche Alcindor and then Senator Chris Coons (D-DE). In both, Alcindor decried the idea of economic relief for the oil/gas and hotel industries because of their connections to the administration (click “expand”):
With the caveat that the markets are not the economy, but that the markets watch the economy and take their cues, today was another bad day on Wall Street with the Dow Jones down more than 1,400 points. At this point, the coronavirus outbreak is impacting the entire U.S. economy and some economists now fear it could trigger a global recession....Trump has some other ideas, like doing a payroll tax cut through the end of the year which, let's just be clear, would reduce the funding source for Social Security and Medicare and, as if right on cue, offering tax relief for impacted tourism related industries like hotels, airlines and cruise lines. Hotels, you say?
(....)
[TO COONS]: What about this idea — and I don't really understand what — how it relates to coronavirus but it appears that Donald Trump would like to pursue federal aid to shale oil companies. Shale companies hit by the oil shock and the coronavirus downturn. What does that have to do with what people are suffering right now?
(....)
[TO COONS]: The people who will lose jobs and are going to lose opportunities are waitresses and people who work in small restaurants. But it appears Donald Trump's focus as the leader — your Senate leader has said are banks, shale oil companies, rich folks who are all lining up at the tiller. The thing that struck me and I think a lot of people was the hotels idea that Donald Trump — let’s just put up a list of the hotels that he has something to do with, whether he owns them or leases them out. Those are all over the world. All over the country, but all over the world. These are just the ones in the United States.
(....)
[TO COONS] Well, we certain hope your colleagues on the other side of the aisle who have been amenable to doing whatever Donald Trump wants will stand with you on that and I think the American people do not want to see any bailout to Trump industries. That’s just me talking, not putting that on you.
