MSNBC Talks Over Birx to Bash ‘Incoherent,’ ‘Rambling’ Trump ‘Mentally…Unraveling’

April 4th, 2020 9:26 PM

MSNBC allowed Deadline: White House host Nicolle Wallace to host their coverage of Saturday’s White House Coronavirus Task Force daily briefing and, predictably, she twice interrupted to rip President Trump with like-minded guests Kimberly Atkins and Steve Schmidt. In Schmidt’s case, he blabbered that Trump was “completely over his head,” “incoherent,” “mentally….unraveling,” and “rambling.”

After the President’s opening remarks (which included a brutal scolding of the liberal media), Wallace skipped FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn’s remarks to kvetch to Atkins that, along with warning that this coming week would be dreadful, Trump said a lot of other stuff, too, some of it nonsensical.”

 

 

Wallace added that “some of it” was “incoherent, some of it not consistent with what his doctors have had say.”

Thankfully, Wallace returned to the briefing a short time later for Dr. Tony Fauci.

The other time MSNBC interrupted came at 5:01 p.m. Eastern after Trump answered a series of questions about the late Friday night firing of Michael Atkinson, who had been the intelligence community’s inspector general. Not only did Trump call him “a disgrace” but said this about the infamous whistleblower: “Somebody ought to sue his ass off.”

Even though Trump insisted on shifting focus back to the pandemic, this allowed Schmidt and Wallace to spend nearly four minutes relitigating their beloved topic of impeachment.

Wallace went on a pointless monologue repeating Trump and defending both Atkinson and the whistleblower. Without even asking Schmidt a question, the real-life Brick Tamland went on a rant of his own.

After defending Atkinson, MSNBC stuck with Schmidt’s rant instead of listening to Dr. Deborah Birx (though they would eventually return to the briefing for a portion of her answer to a reporter’s question).

In other words, MSNBC showed its priorities by putting its Trump Derangement Syndrome over the scientists liberal outlets (and the Biden campaign) are demanding Trump listen to (as if to suggest he hasn’t at all).

As usual, Schmidt emptied a thesaurus to suggest Trump was mentally unstable, trashing his angry outburst of grievance, of hurt about his self-interest at a moment in time where, minutes before, he's alluding to the projections where hundreds of thousands of Americans will be dead, largely because of the slow and inept response of the Trump government to dealing with this crisis.”

Ah, yes. It would have been a true surprise if Schmidt and/or Wallace hadn’t tried to blame Trump directly for thousands of dead Americans.

Schmidt concluded:

I think this whole news conference shows someone so completely over his head for the magnitude of what's in front of the country. It was incoherent, it was rambling, there's no specifics, there's boogiemen and grievances all over the place, from the unnamed governors, to the unnamed health care workers who are hoarding the supplies. It --- it really looks almost mentally like he's unraveling under --- under the pressure. I just --- it's an extraordinary discomforting performance by the President of the United States in a crisis of --- of --- of great difficulty for the nation.

To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from April 4, click “expand.”

MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
April 4, 2020
4:42 p.m. Eastern

NICOLLE WALLACE: We've been watching Donald Trump. He took the lead at today's coronavirus task force briefing, big headline today likely to be the President saying this. This will probably be the worst week. He said a lot of other stuff, too, some of it nonsensical. Some of it incoherent, some of it not consistent with what his doctors have had say.

(….)

5:01 p.m. Eastern

WALLACE: The President, we're going to pull out for a minute and talk about the other bombshell in the news, the President now saying “that man is a disgrace” about the ousted I.G. from the intelligence community, Mr. Atkinson who he fired late last night and then the topic of the whistle-blower, the President said, “somebody ought to sue his ass off,” the President of the United States of the whistle-blower, “somebody ought to sue his ass off.” Donald J. Trump just uttering those words after saying the inspector general for the intelligence community was “a disgrace.” Steve Schmidt, the inspector general for the intelligence community is a Trump appointee. He went to DOJ. He actually delayed the transmission of the whistle-blower complaint. He investigated it. It held up to be true and none other than John Bolton, Donald Trump's hand-picked national security adviser, corroborated the entirety of the entire whistle-blower complaint. Again, I just --- just want to restate what the President just said about the whistle-blower. The entire substantial of the whistle-blower complaint over which Donald Trump was impeached was corroborated by long-time Republican advisers like Fiona Hill, a Russia expert, like Ambassador Bill Taylor, a person tapped by several Republican Presidents, by John Bolton, lifelong conservative, Donald Trump's former national security adviser, but of the whistle-blower Donald Trump now saying “somebody ought to sue his ass” and of the inspector general for the intelligence community, also a trump appointee, Donald Trump: “That man is a disgrace.”

STEVE SCHMIDT: That man was a civil servant who was doing his job, who took an oath to protect and preserve the Constitution of the United States. He did his duty. It's just another example of Donald Trump at war with competence in the government. What we see again is an example of the corruption of this administration and this presidency and so there was a disgrace and it was the moment that he attacked yet another hard working, patriotic member of the civil service in this country who is simply trying to do their job and I -- and I think it bears mentioning, Nicolle. I mean, it --- it is extraordinary late on a Saturday afternoon to be watching the President of the United States at a --- at a news conference when the country is substantially locked down, 92 percent of Americans and to deliver this angry outburst of grievance, of hurt about his self-interest at a moment in time where, minutes before, he's alluding to the projections where hundreds of thousands of Americans will be dead, largely because of the slow and inept response of the Trump government to dealing with this crisis. And so I think this whole news conference shows someone so completely over his head for the magnitude of what's in front of the country. It was incoherent, it was rambling, there's no specifics, there's boogiemen and grievances all over the place, from the unnamed governors, to the unnamed health care workers who are hoarding the supplies. It --- it really looks almost mentally like he's unraveling under --- under the pressure. I just --- it's an extraordinary discomforting performance by the President of the United States in a crisis of --- of --- of great difficulty for the nation.