Early Tuesday night, MSNBC was caught after a Joe Biden/Kamala Harris coronavirus memorial event between churning out more of their daily dreck against President Trump and returning to their Obama-era role of state-run TV.
In the case of the latter, the event was deemed reminiscent of Psalm 147, proof that the federal government felt the pain of those lost to COVID-19, and a call to action against 74 million Trump voters as culpable for the pandemic and American division.
MSNBC contributor and Princeton professor Eddie Glaude was most unhinged, claiming America’s “selfishness” had “suffocated the land was held at arm's length” until Biden and Harris “pulled the grief and regret out of the privacy of our hearts, if just for a moment, so that we all could share it.”
He then invoked the Bible and how the event was akin to what the Psalmist has told us about the Lord: “Oh, what a first step. What a beautiful step. So, I'm going to, you know, I'm reminded of the Psalmist, you know? ‘He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.’ Maybe the dead will speak to us now. Maybe they can rest now.”
Along with his emotional sharing that he lost a dear friend on Monday to COVID, Glaude said that Biden’s inaugural address must rise to the levels of Lincoln’s second inaugural and FDR’s first.
As for who’s to blame for what’s ailed America, Glaude said “it’s easy for us to place all the blame on Donald Trump,” but “74-plus million people who voted for him” should as well because of their “greed” and “selfishness” that can no longer be allowed to “run rampant across the land,” if America is “to heal” and “remember.”
Rewinding back to when the memorial ended, 11th Hour host Brian Williams hailed it as “a beautiful and fitting memorial” and Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace gushed that Biden and Harris “may have just cracked open a lot of people who were holding it all in, and I think this is the first time that anyone in a position of power has spoken to the families of 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID.”
So, according to Wallace, the entire administration — ranging from the President to Vice President Pence to HHS Secretary Azar to Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany — never said a thing about or expressed condolences about the dead? What a pathetic insult.
Wallace added that Biden’s “been processing the grief of the nation's loss due to COVID since the very beginning, because he understands that one loss, two losses, three losses was too many and understood the pain that people were feeling, and now he is our country's president.”
MSNBC contributor and former Obama official Kavita Patel agreed that Biden and Harris (and not any religion or self-reflection) were who “crack[ed] open” America’s “shell” of grief.
Patel and Wallace continued (click “expand”):
PATEL: They really are doing this and they're not asking for anything but honestly, Nicolle, they're asking for this moment. They're asking for somebody to acknowledge that this is real and it's happening, and what a 180, you know? When the President — when President Trump said that, you know, we were doing this for money or that healthcare people were overcounting the deaths, look at those lights. That's — that's not anything we wanted, but it's a way to honor all of us. Nicolle, it's a way to honor, you know, my kids, your kids, people who can't see their grandparents. I have had patients who have said, you know, I've had to take off my PPE just to do some parts of the physical exam and they said it's the first time someone's touched them. That's — this memorial acknowledges that, and it acknowledges that we do matter. You matter and I'm really honestly — I am. I'm hopeful but we needed this moment to just be able to grieve and also honor these people.
WALLACE: Eddie, I don't know if I can stand to be cracked open any more than — than Kavita Patel has cracked me or President-Elect Biden and vice President-Elect Harris just did, but on the topic of unprocessed grief, on the topic of all the hurt, on the topic of the disregard that not wearing a mask and not abiding by the couple things we could do, staying a safe distance apart, not gathering in people's homes, wearing our masks, allowing ourselves to acknowledge the loss and feel the pain and the loss seems like a good step in the right direction to getting the nation to do the right things.
Later on, Wallace fawned over Biden’s familiarity with grief and how that’s proof that America electing Biden was fate at work: “There is no turning grief into anything. It's a hole in your heart. But maybe having a man with a gaping hole in his heart as president is fitting right now.”
Fellow MSNBCer and former senator, Claire McCaskill (D-MO) said Biden made clear that he “get[s] it” that Americans are scared and, unlike Trump, will ensure that Americans can believe in the future and feel safe to leave their homes without contracting COVID-19.
Since McCaskill had been living under a rock, the liberal media have been the ones spreading a message meant to mentally cripple Americans into fearing they’ll catch the virus if they dare to unlock their doors. But go on with your revisionist history, Senator.
MSNBC senior correspondent Chris Jansing gave her endorsement, stating that Biden’s beginning his administration with a non-political message (click “expand”):
JANSING: It is. And knowing that other people share with you the loss because this is a disease of isolation, of people alone in hospital beds.
(....)
JANSING: It's a comforting moment and a sobering moment, and a moment that should indeed drive purpose, that this has to stop. It can't keep going on like this and that there is a new administration coming in with the knowledge of that, the understanding of that, and the accepting responsibility of that.
WALLACE: Chris, something Eddie said, that this experience tonight was not a political one. It seems that if Joe Biden can string together moments of leadership that are not political, he may go a long way toward his goal of trying to eye those who want to be united.
JANSING: There is no politics in losing somebody you love....[T]his isn't politics. This is about what we've done every time that we've had a great tragedy in our country. I lived in New York on 9/11. And the way people worried in with help, the resolve of a nation — right — was extraordinary. And we've seen it again and again and again. When the Challenger disaster happened, and what we heard was from Ronald Reagan, we will be going to space again and tomorrow we're going to hear from astronauts during the course of the inauguration. So it's — it’s the idea that as a nation, we have always in times of great tragedy, in times of great challenge figured out how, as Americans, to come together and move forward and that's not a political statement. That's a statement of our democracy.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from January 19, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s Nationwide COVID-19 Memorial
January 19, 2021
5:37 p.m. EasternBRIAN WILLIAMS: The men and women who will be the power structure of the United States of America walking away now under heavy security after what I think, Nicole, was a beautiful and fitting memorial.
NICOLLE WALLACE: Yeah, I think that the incoming president, incoming vice president may have just cracked open a lot of people who were holding it all in, and I think this is the first time that anyone in a position of power has spoken to the families of 400,000 Americans who have died from COVID. I remember coming in on a Saturday night at the very beginning of the pandemic, and Joe Biden called in and did an interview with Mike Barnicle and me and I told him that, because my son was home full-time, I was teaching third grade for the first time in my life and not doing a very good job and anchoring from home and not doing a very good job, and I didn't want my son to see me cry so I cried every day when I ran and I asked him how he could believe in a god that allowed so many people to die. And he said he had this very thoughtful answer. He's been processing the grief of the nation's loss due to COVID since the very beginning, because he understands that one loss, two losses, three losses was too many and understood the pain that people were feeling, and now he is our country's president. Kavita Patel has been watching along with us as well as Eddie Glaude. Kavita, Your thoughts?
KAVITA PATEL: Yes. Sorry, Nicole. Yeah, you're right. That shell to crack open, it's pretty cathartic and I can tell you that not just the tears that we have all been kind of holding in or doing on our runs or I do it at night so my kids don't see me, but it was so important to have this moment, those lights to see that those lives are acknowledged, that they all mattered, and yet, Nicolle, the kind of knowledge that the work still continues. We have so much more to do to heal the nation. I think you heard Vice President-Elect Harris say that. And I'm so — it's hard, Nicole, it's so hard to be so hopeful. We have miraculous vaccines. We have a national plan that's going to come together and just think about the tragedy, you know, loved ones, family members who have died, colleagues who are truly breaking their backs, not just in hospitals and clinics but in neighborhoods to make sure businesses stay open, to make sure that you and I can get to and from, if we need to, and so this was so important, and it's such a fitting, fitting way to acknowledge on this memorial, on this historic day, 400,000 deaths that we've crossed and yet we have exactly what you see. We have lights honoring the angels and I couldn't — I couldn't think of anything better and anything more necessary than this moment.
WALLACE: We talk most days, and you do always find the positive, the reason to hope, but I've never heard you cracked open, and I wonder if I could just press a little farther here. [PATEL LAUGHS] Another thing that I thought was so striking is to hold up the nurses who are standing on the front lines, holding our loved ones' hands as they take their last breaths and singing to them.
PATEL: Yeah, that's absolutely true. You know, I — I — I'm really proud. I'm the first doctor in my family, Nicolle, and it wasn't easy to get here, but you know, my — honestly, my godsends are all the nurses and medical assistants and clinical nursing assistants. They're the people that changed my uncle's bedpan when he was in the unit with COVID. They're the people who took care of my friends, doctors, and nurses who were also sick and didn't think about their own safety. They are the ones that held hands. Doctors are also right in there, because they're doing a lot of this work, but yes, and the nurses, techs, I'll put the EMS workers who have to deal with these critical patients in their ambulances, and Nicolle, in Los Angeles, they're just waiting for hours to have somebody empty them. They really are doing this and they're not asking for anything but honestly, Nicolle, they're asking for this moment. They're asking for somebody to acknowledge that this is real and it's happening, and what a 180, you know? When the President — when President Trump said that, you know, we were doing this for money or that healthcare people were overcounting the deaths, look at those lights. That's — that's not anything we wanted, but it's a way to honor all of us. Nicolle, it's a way to honor, you know, my kids, your kids, people who can't see their grandparents. I have had patients who have said, you know, I've had to take off my PPE just to do some parts of the physical exam and they said it's the first time someone's touched them. That's — this memorial acknowledges that, and it acknowledges that we do matter. You matter and I'm really honestly — I am. I'm hopeful but we needed this moment to just be able to grieve and also honor these people.
WALLACE: Eddie, I don't know if I can stand to be cracked open any more than — than Kavita Patel has cracked me or President-Elect Biden and vice President-Elect Harris just did, but on the topic of unprocessed grief, on the topic of all the hurt, on the topic of the disregard that not wearing a mask and not abiding by the couple things we could do, staying a safe distance apart, not gathering in people's homes, wearing our masks, allowing ourselves to acknowledge the loss and feel the pain and the loss seems like a good step in the right direction to getting the nation to do the right things.
EDDIE GLAUDE: You're so right. You know, I'm thinking, as I listened and watched, I'm thinking about my good friend, Charles Upshur. He died yesterday — of COVID. Died yesterday. And you know, the selfishness that has kind of suffocated the land was held at arm's length for a moment. We've needed a national ritual to mourn so that we can think about the morning. And for a moment, just — just — just listening to the words and the song and singing the lights, President-Elect Joe Biden and Vice President Harris pulled the grief and regret out of the privacy of our hearts, if just for a moment, so that we all could share it. Cardinal Gregory put it powerfully: “Sorrow unites us.” You know? We needed this ritual, because the dead weren't settled. People didn't die right, Nicolle, and coming out of my tradition, when folk don't die right, they haunt. So, you know, I'm thinking of Charlie when he would slice that golf ball and cuss at the top of his lungs or we would sit down and smoke cigars and talk about how bad we played and how — how good we would play the next round and thinking about all those folks who just for the moment, the nation shared their grief. Oh, what a first step. What a beautiful step. So, I'm going to, you know, I'm reminded of the Psalmist, you know? “He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.” Maybe the dead will speak to us now. Maybe they can rest now.
WALLACE: Eddie, I need you to keep talking. You can tell me more about Charlie or tell me what Biden does next.
GLAUDE: Well, you know, I've been thinking about, you know, what lies ahead for President Biden, President-Elect Biden. Tomorrow, we're on the eve of a different moment and he has two responsibilities, Nicolle. He has to do two things simultaneously. An inaugural address that has to do what Abraham Lincoln did in his second inaugural. As he spoke to the dead, the carnage of the Civil War and what it ushered in and he has to do what FDR did as he spoke to a broken nation full of unemployed and hungry folk who couldn't imagine a future. He has to do both of those at once. What we just saw spoke to my heart. It was beyond politics. It allowed me to finally just say good-bye to Charlie in a different sort of way. I've been trying to — all night, I've been up thinking about him, you know? And I could imagine my close friend thinking about her mother. All the folks who have lost folks. So, it's a step to us finally putting behind the horror of the last four years and maybe putting behind the ugliness that has so threatened the country. So, I'm thankful for the ritual. We need our rituals of mourning.
WALLACE: Yeah.
GLAUDE: We need our national rituals of sorrow, Nicolle.
WALLACE: I agree. Brian.
WILLIAMS: Claire McCaskill is watching along with us. Claire, it would have taken nothing for the sitting president to do what we just saw. We've lost 100,000 people since December.
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: The — first, let me just say to Eddie, I'm so sorry about your friend. We all have to take a moment to tell everyone we care about how sorry we are for their friends and for their families, and that's what Joe Biden did tonight. It was simple. It wasn't elaborate. It was solemn. And there's two parts of this. It's not just the grief, but it's also the fear. America has been afraid because of this pandemic. When is it going to strike? Is it going to get my children if they go to school? Am I going to catch it if I teach? Will I get it when I go to the grocery store? Is my grandfather going to die? And that fear was ignored by the President of the United States. He not only lacked empathy for the loss of American life, he didn't understand that a President's role is to make America feel stronger in the face of fear. And Joe Biden, by focusing the transition on the COVID pandemic and the death in his path, he has sent a message to America, I get it. I get it. And I'm on it. And we're going to do a much better job of not only bringing this thing to heel, but making you so you're not afraid every day to walk out the door.
WILLIAMS: Eddie, as personal as this is for you, the sharp relief that the loss of a loved one brings to your life, I'm looking at these pictures, realizing this is also personal, but for the man who's been in the White House for four years, yes, there would have been strict rules in the midst of a pandemic, but let's not forget it was this rare combination of malpractice and malfeasance and a handed us a yet uncontrolled pandemic and then the incitement of violence that has handed us our own capital city untouchable by any of us citizens. It's been locked down. We can watch this to try to be a part of it. We cannot take part in it.
GLAUDE: Yeah. You know, we're at a crossroads as a nation. And you know, Brian, it's easy for us to place all of the blame on Donald Trump. He makes it easy for us. You know? He does. But there were 75 — 74-plus million people who voted for him. Selfishness, greed, you know, they run rampant across the land. But there is something that President-Elect Joe Biden said. To heal is to remember. To heal is to remember. So not only do we have to remember our dead, we have to remember what brought us to this moment. What got us here. And it's not just Donald Trump. It's not just him. And that honesty will help us walk the path that we need to walk, I hope. I pray.
WALLACE: Chris Jansing has been covering this event on the ground there for us. Chris Jansing, you generously shared the loss of your aunt Margie to COVID. I'm thinking of this moment that Joe Biden gave all of us, this conversation here. And I'm thinking of all the coverage of Joe Biden after the loss of his son Beau and his comments today that until you've grieved loss yourself, you throw around phrases like turning grief into purpose. There is no turning grief into anything. It's a hole in your heart. But maybe having a man with a gaping hole in his heart as president is fitting right now.
GLAUDE: Mmmm.
CHRIS JANSING: It is. And knowing that other people share with you the loss because this is a disease of isolation, of people alone in hospital beds. I will be forever grateful for the nurse who when I said goodbye to my aunt on FaceTime was stroking her hair, but she nevertheless died alone and as I stand here, and you know this well. I worked in the White House, Brian worked in the White House. And when I worked in the White House for NBC and MSNBC, I would come here sometimes on Saturday mornings. The beauty of it, the life of it, all the people out running, pushing baby carriages, but you're also surrounded by memorials. Over my left shoulder is the World War II Memorial and across the street from where I'm standing is the Martin Luther King memorial. I remember so vividly the first time I saw the Vietnam Memorial. And — and the enormity of all those names on a wall was almost too much to bear.
WALLACE: Yeah.
JANSING: And then when those lights lit up, and they reflect, right? So they're multiplied over and over and over again, those lights from where I'm standing. You see the reflection. And there are so many of them, 400. And the enormity of the idea that each of them represents more than a thousand people, that we're losing more people every day than we lost on 9/11. And so, it is also a sobering moment. It's a comforting moment and a sobering moment, and a moment that should indeed drive purpose, that this has to stop. It can't keep going on like this and that there is a new administration coming in with the knowledge of that, the understanding of that, and the accepting responsibility of that.
WALLACE: Chris, something Eddie said, that this experience tonight was not a political one. It seems that if Joe Biden can string together moments of leadership that are not political, he may go a long way toward his goal of trying to eye those who want to be united.
JANSING: There is no politics in losing somebody you love. My sister is still fighting the coronavirus. She had a bad day today and you know that there are how many other people out there hospitalized today, who — and their families who are going through the same thing. And lack of acknowledgment of that, it's not — this isn't politics. This is about what we've done every time that we've had a great tragedy in our country. I lived in New York on 9/11. And the way people worried in with help, the resolve of a nation — right — was extraordinary. And we've seen it again and again and again. When the Challenger disaster happened, and what we heard was from Ronald Reagan, we will be going to space again and tomorrow we're going to hear from astronauts during the course of the inauguration. So it's — it’s the idea that as a nation, we have always in times of great tragedy, in times of great challenge figured out how, as Americans, to come together and move forward and that's not a political statement. That's a statement of our democracy.
