Monday's Morning Joe robotically turned to the predictable talking point of trying to suggest Trump's Tulsa rally is a dangerous public health risk. Co-host Mika Brzezinzki cited the health director of Tulsa: "According to the Tulsa World, Dr. Bruce Dart said the city is seeing a, quote, 'significant increase in case trends' that makes a large gathering like the rally dangerous not only for attendees, but the president himself." They trotted out the same point about Trump endangering people by speaking at West Point this weekend.
At least Joe Scarborough noted the Trump rebuttal, that leftists are marching in the streets en masse. Then get a load of how Robert Costa of The Washington Post and PBS hilariously suggested that Tulsa is somehow near the Mexican border to zing Trump.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Bob Costa, you've had time and again, you've had the president complaining, watching images of people marching in the streets, saying if they can do that, why can’t I start holding my rallies again?
ROBERT COSTA: This is going to be a significant challenge for the White House, rhetorically, politically, logically, in the coming weeks. Because you hear White House officials and advisers to the president over the weekend, that they are blaming Mexico and the border for some of the cases around the border of this country, the Sun Belt. And yet at the same time the president's holding this rally in Oklahoma.
And if the president wants to blame Mexico in the coming months, and wants to blame protesters for the Black Lives Matter movement, and others who are protesting racial injustice, he will also have to contend with the fact that he is holding mass gatherings himself.
(AP reported that anonymous "officials familiar with the discussions" suggested Trump officials batted around blaming Mexico for a spike in COVID cases in border states.)
Costa really should have looked at Google Maps first. Tulsa is separated from Mexico by three-quarters of Oklahoma and all of Texas. The closest Mexican town of any size, Ciudad Acuna, is 641 miles away from Tulsa. Nuevo Laredo is 686 miles away.
If Tulsa is "around" the Mexican border, then New Hampshire is "around" the South! Google Maps says the distance from Nashua, New Hampshire to the border of North Carolina (at Roanoke Rapids) is 649 miles.
Costa once reported for National Review. He's now paid by three decidedly left-leaning media outlets. He's hosting Washington Week on PBS, reporting for the Post, and contributing to NBC/MSNBC. Even if his employers have changed, geography hasn't.
