On Saturday, Hezbollah, an Iran-sponsored terrorist group, attacked a sports center in Golan, killing 12 children and teenagers. A few days later, an Israeli airstrike killed a top Hezbollah commander in retaliation.
Yesterday, another airstrike killed a senior leader of Hamas, another Iran-sponsored terrorist group. The bold strike took place in Iran's capital of Tehran. The views of experts on the region are reflected in this Financial Times column: "The risk of all-out Middle East war is rising sharply." CNN This Morning devoted a long opening segment to the ominous situation in the 6 am hour Wednesday.
Meanwhile, over on MSNBC's Morning Joe, Joe and Mika might be on vacation, but under the baton of Jonathan Lemire, that same crucial opening segment was all about "cat ladies," "weird," extolling the Kamala Harris rally in Atlanta, and reveling in a new swing-state poll showing things going the Democrats' way.
Yes, the show eventually did get around to discussing the dire situation in the Middle East. But priorities, priorities! Boosting Kamala and dumping on Trump-Vance come first!
Morning Joe opened with a clip of Daily Show comedian Ronny Chieng mocking Vance's cat ladies line that people without children are miserable. Hey, Chieng said, mimicking crying, they've got more disposable income, can afford to fly business class, and have sex lives!
Unaware of the irony, Lemire commented, "J.D. Vance's childless cat lady comment continues to be a major story line in the presidential race."
Uh, yeah, Jonathan: because people like you in the liberal media continue to pound it. You know, like, starting shows with it rather than prioritizing minor stories like the Middle East on the brink of possible conflagration!
Lemire contrasted Vance's supposed plight with Kamala Harris "building real momentum with her campaign, holding a raucous rally in Atlanta last night in front of a huge and lively crowd in Atlanta."
Lemire then returned to the cat lady theme, telling Katty Kay that Vance's remark was "deeply offensive." And, again displaying a certain cluelessness, Lemire expressed surprise that the cat lady issue is "really staying." Again, Jonathan, because people like you won't let it die, wringing every last bit out of it to trash Vance and boost Harris.
Kay chipped in to echo another anti-Republican trope, calling Vance's facetious suggestion that people with children get an additional vote "weird." Nicely played, Katty! Keep "weird" alive! Kay then turned to trumpeting a new swing state poll showing things moving Harris' way.
That was followed by a long clip of the Democrat rally in Atlanta The clip concluded with Kamala throwing down the gauntlet to Trump about debating her. In what will apparently become a go-to line for the campaign, she said, to raucous applause, "If you've got something to say, say it to my face!"
Toward the end of the segment, Kay actually suggested to Sam Stein -- facetiously, we can only hope -- that he might want to augment his income by marketing "Say It To My Face!" t-shirts. Yup, nothing says solid journalism like journalists hawking swag for their preferred presidential candidate!
Ex-Senator Claire McCaskill returned to the feline theme, saying that "Democrats are having fun, and it's about joy, and opportunity, and freedom," whereas those Republicans are about--you guessed it--"cat ladies."
Lemire chimed back in, yet again displaying amazing obliviousness, saying "'weird' is the word the Democrats have fixated on the last ten days." It's not just the Democrats who've fixated on it, Jonathan! Lemire added that the Republican take is "really dark, it's a dark image, it's a dark image." McCaskill solemnly agreed: dark!
Morning Joe warns America: beware the Republicans, with their weird, dark talk of cat ladies!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
7/31/24
6:00 am EDTRONNY CHIENG [Daily Show]: Friends who have chosen not to have kids, you know how totally miserable they are [mimics crying.] Ah, ah, ah, I've got too much disposable income. My life is so hard. I can fly business class. I still have a sex life. Please, kill me.
JONATHAN LEMIRE: JD Vance's childless cat lady comment continues to be a major story line in the presidential race. And his cleanup attempts, well, they don't seem to be working, as there are now more examples of him using similar phrasing over the past few years.
Meanwhile, Vice President Kamala Harris is building real momentum with her campaign, holding a raucous rally last night in front of a huge and lively crowd in Atlanta.
. . .
Katty, good to see you this morning. Yeah, we have children, we love our children, we wouldn't do anything different in our lives. But to suggest that those childless Americans don't have high-quality lives, too, not only inaccurate, but continues to be, on a more serious note, deeply offensive to people.
And it's one of those, in a news cycle that is so fast, a news cycle that is relentless, and things just seem to move on to the next story within a few hours at times. This one is really staying, and particularly for someone like JD Vance, trying to really introduce himself nationally, this is not a good first impression.
KATTY KAY: Yeah. People with kids don't like it. People, of course, without kids don't like it. And then there's this weird policy proposal that people who have kids should get more votes in the United States . . . And, of course, the Democrats are making hey out of it.
Meanwhile, Vice President Harris, it looks like, has closed the gap or taken the lead over Donald Trump in every swing state, according to the latest Bloomberg and Morning Consult poll.
. . .
Those numbers come as Vice President Harris herself held a rally last night in Atlanta, drawing a very energetic crowd of some 10,000 people. She laid out the contrast between her and Donald Trump, once again presenting this election as a choice between a prosecutor and a felon.
Harris also attacked the former president on border security, and called him out for flip-flopping on the next presidential debate.
KAMALA HARRIS: Our administration worked on the most significant border security bill in decades. Some of the most conservative Republicans in Washington, D.C. supported the bill. Even the Border Patrol endorsed it. It was all set to pass. But at the last minute, Trump directed his allies in the Senate to vote it down [booing.]
Right. He tanked, tanked, the bipartisan deal, because he thought it would help him win an election. Which goes to show Donald Trump does not care about border security.
. . .
So last week, you may have seen he pulled out of the debate in September he had previously agreed to [booing]. So, so, here's the thing. Here's, here's the funny thing about that. Here's the funny thing about that.
So he won't debate. But he and his running mate sure seem to have a lot to say about me. And by the way, don't you find some of their stuff to just be plain weird [cheering]?
Well, Donald [cheering], I do hope you'll reconsider to meet me on the debate stage, because as the saying goes: if you've got something to say, say to my face! [wild cheering]
. . .
CLAIRE MCCASKILL: The Democrats are having fun, and it's about joy and opportunity and freedom. And the other side is about, you know, cat ladies and electrocuting boats, and stuff that most Americans are just going, well, that doesn't really move me.
LEMIRE: Yeah. And "weird" is the word Democrats have fixated on the last ten days, but it's also, it's really dark. It's a dark image --
MCCASKILL: -- Dark.
LEMIRE: -- of America that Donald Trump and JD Vance are putting forward.
. . .
KAY: Sam [Stein], I don't know if you've got -- if you need a little bit more money, but I see that Amazon is not yet selling "Say It To My Face" t-shirts. So there's a big missed opportunity for you. And I'm sure they pay you a lot of money to do Way Too Early every morning, you do it brilliantly [wry smile from Stein], but if you need a little more, Say It To My Face t-shirts have to be sold, I reckon.
