While WikiLeaks revelations concerning corruption at the Clinton Foundation where released today, on Thursday’s Morning Joe, MSNBC’s political correspondent Kasie Hunt obnoxiously stated that “Hillary Clinton is enjoying an enormous honeymoon period. Whether it’s with the press who covers her or whether it’s with the polling. She's really riding high.”
This statement reflects something well known about the biased coverage of the Democratic nominee, who is considered far less trustworthy than her Republican opponent Donald Trump. Today’s news about her husband, Bill Clinton’s corruption scandal will contribute to this frustrating factor despite Hillary Clinton’s lead in the polls.
On Morning Joe, host Joe Scarborough suggested that in light of these new revelations, the State of New York should investigate the Clinton Foundation and shut it down as was done with the Trump Foundation, for a much less serious legal violation and more so “because there's so much more money involved here!” This is referring to the use of the Clinton Foundation to make as much as $66 million in personal profit for the Clinton family.
Later on Ron Fournier of the National Journal, himself a Democrat who had been harassed by his own party for his criticism of Clinton controversies told the MSNBC host: “It's bigger than that, Joe it’s not just how this is going to affect the campaign. But when she does win, if she does win, this dramatically undercuts her ability to be able to lead and have moral authority to unite this country and to be trusted.”
Then Scarborough went on to press his colleague, Kasie Hunt who covers the Clinton campaign for NBC on their response to this scandal to which she responded:
"One of things that we've seen, coming out in these earlier WikiLeaks dumps, this is portrait of a staff on the Hillary Clinton side that is grappling with how to deal with what Bill Clinton has been up to and with their own candidate who seems to struggle at times to put these two things together to step in and say to her husband, ‘hey, you shouldn’t be doing this.’ You saw this in their conversation about a speech that Bill Clinton was supposed to give to Morgan Stanley right at the time that she was announcing her presidential bid and they really had to push back. The second thing I'll say about it is, right now, Hillary Clinton is enjoying an enormous honeymoon period. Whether it’s with the press who covers her or whether it’s with the polling. She's really riding high. You can see it in her demeanor on the campaign trail. She's extraordinary -- she went to an Adele concert in Miami the other night, a couple weeks out from the election. I think what you're seeing in these stories and what you’re seeing in this conversation going on is a preview of what comes next in the event that she does win this election."
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In concluding their conversation, Scarborough ripped the Clintons’ defense on their corruption scandals, saying: “We're just getting this information out today. What are we going to learn tomorrow, what are we going to learn next week and the Clintons always go, ‘oh we’ve been so investigated, there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy’ and they keep doing stuff that crosses the line, they keep doing stuff that requires investigation and then they are shocked that they’re being investigated.”
Here are the excerpts from the October 27th discussion on Morning Joe:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
10/27/2016
6:12:51 – 6:14:26 AM
SCARBOROUGH: Okay so we have two different quid pro quos or two different blurring of the lines…we got one at the State Department that we’re all talking about…We’ll see one of these days, we’ll find out if there ever was a quid pro quo. What we certainly have here though is - on the foundation side, the use of foundation to make hundreds of millions of dollars for the Clintons. Now I wonder, is the Attorney General of New York going to shut the Clinton foundation down like he shut the Trump foundation down? I mean - from what I've seen, I think the Trump foundation probably needed to be shut down but those are just nickels and dimes compared to the money here. They're using this foundation – they’re bragging about using this foundation to make the Clintons hundreds of millions of dollars. Shouldn't the Attorney General of the State of New York launch an investigation and at least shut down the foundation like they did with the Trump foundation? Because there's so much more money involved here!
MIKE HALPERIN: Well the Clinton foundation does do a lot of stuff that's good around the world. You can't ignore that piece of it. I think the thing that's going to get more scrutiny again is why were these people giving money? The Clintons would say you know - the heads of these corporations were our friends and we were in business with them.
SCARBOROUGH: But Doug band himself said ‘we're going to exploit the foundation to make Bill Clinton Inc $66 million’. We don’t have to look into anybody’s – I don’t have to wonder any more ---
(....)
7:12:49 – 7:15:06 AM
RON FOURNIER: It's bigger than that, Joe it’s not just how this is going to affect the campaign. But when she does win, if she does win, this dramatically undercuts her ability to be able to lead and have moral authority to unite this country and to be trusted.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: That’s the thing Casey, you're with the Clintons on the campaign. Obviously, they have been frustrated. Their campaign staff have been frustrated all along that Donald Trump has been and still is, even in the latest polls, seen as more honest and trustworthy than Hillary Clinton. I will say that again. Donald Trump is consistently has been seen by Americans as being more honest and trustworthy than Hillary Clinton. What does that do to you when you go to sleep? Not to you, but what would that do to the Clintons.
KASIE HUNT: I think that that is a point of frustration for sure. I think, you know Ron Fournier touched on this a little bit. One of things that we've seen, coming out in these earlier WikiLeaks dumps, this is portrait of a staff on the Hillary Clinton side that is grappling with how to deal with what Bill Clinton has been up to and with their own candidate who seems to struggle at times to put these two things together to step in and say to her husband, ‘hey, you shouldn’t be doing this.’ You saw this in their conversation about a speech that Bill Clinton was supposed to give to Morgan Stanley right at the time that she was announcing her presidential bid and they really had to push back. The second thing I'll say about it is, right now, Hillary Clinton is enjoying an enormous honeymoon period. Whether it’s with the press who covers her or whether it’s with the polling. She's really riding high. You can see it in her demeanor on the campaign trail. She's extraordinary -- she went to an Adele concert in Miami the other night a couple weeks out from the election. I think what you're seeing in these stories and what you’re seeing in this conversation going on is a preview of what comes next in the event that she does win this election. This is the conversation that Republicans in Washington will want to have over and over and over again. I think they're already digging into this material over on Capitol Hill. I think that that does as Ron said, pose significant challenges. That’s part of why we have been talking for so long on whether the American public is really ready to have the Clintons back in the White House.
(....)
7:22:32 – 7:23:10 AM
SCARBOROUGH: Here we are, today's October 27th, 2016, and we're just getting this information out today. What are we going to learn tomorrow, what are we going to learn next week and the Clintons always go, ‘oh we’ve been so investigated, there’s a vast right-wing conspiracy’ and they keep doing stuff that crosses the line, they keep doing stuff that requires investigation and then they are shocked that they’re being investigated. It's poor pitiful me in the words of Linda Ronstadt. Why is everybody picking on me? It’s because they just can’t help themselves. That is why Bernie supporters and other Democrats just have Clinton fatigue and then the whole country signs up for it for another 4 years.
