The anti-Ted Cruz bias was as sharp as a cheddar-cheesehead on Morning Joe Tuesday. The pundits on MSNBC’s morning show hit a new low by criticizing how he speaks and insinuating it’s scaring his two little girls. “I mean, we’ve heard him read a child’s fairy tale. I mean my god. I don't know how those kids sleep,” slammed panelist Nicolle Wallace.
The new round of hits were triggered by how the Senator turned down the offer to wear the famous Wisconsin cheesehead. “There is an ironclad rule of politics. Which is, no funny hats. Any hat by definition is defined as a funny hat,” Ted Cruz joked. “I think the people of Wisconsin wear their cheese so powerfully, that I would not presume to intrude in the elegance with which the people of Wisconsin wear those hats.”
“Oh, my lord … it's Ted Cruz and his delivery. I'm sorry. I can't stand it. You guys all can't stand it,” co-host Mika Brzezinski exclaimed. “It's all so unbelievably disingenuous.” Brzezinski claimed it was all just one big performance and the way he talked was “not true.” Something you would never heard her say about then Senator Barack Obama when he was running for president in 2008.
Her co-host Joe Scarborough also got in some punches saying it was “Shakespearean” and “it is all so awful.” Scarborough also boiled down his co-host’s feelings to their most basic form “Mika thinks he’s a phony.” Later on in the show he mocked how the Senator by trying to close out a segment speaking like Cruz. Scarborough failed in his attempt because his performance was disingenuous, ironically.
The jabbing about how he speaks on the stump soon turned to how he speaks at home and how he speaks to his daughters. “Is that how he talks at the family dinner table? “Children, please get your plates,”” Brzezinski mocked, accompanied with a snooty accent and exaggerated arm movements. Wallace responded by mocking how he reads bedtime stories. “I think it is. I mean, we’ve heard him read a child’s fairy tale. I mean my god. I don't know how those kids sleep.” A joke about Cruz's fatherhood that is almost as charitable as the Washington Post cartoon depicting him as the organ grinder, and his daughters as his monkeys.
It is worth noting that Scarborough and Brzezinski are both quite out in the open about their disdain for the Senator. The pair often pat themselves on the back for their biased coverage of the Senator. In addition, Wallace, who criticized the Cruz campaign as “only appealing in the context of the choices that remain,” does not have room to judge a campaign’s legitimacy when she was a part of the failed John McCain run in 2008. A failed run that gave us eight years of President Obama.
Transcript below:
MSNBC
Morning Joe
April 5, 2016
6:01:13 – 6:03:52 AM Eastern[Video of Ted Cruz in Wisconsin]
TED CRUZ: There is an ironclad rule of politics. Which is, no funny hats. Any hat by definition is defined as a funny hat. And that-- Michael Dukakis demonstrated that powerfully when he put on a helmet and rode in a tank. And so I will cheer the hats on others. But but…
REPORTER: Don't you think the people of Wisconsin want to see you in a cheesehead?
CRUZ: I think the people of Wisconsin wear their cheese so powerfully, that I would not presume to intrude in the elegance with which the people of Wisconsin wear those hats.
[Cut to studio]
JOE SCARBOROUGH: It’s Shakespearean.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: I just don’t know what I want to happen there.
SCARBOROUGH: It’s Shakespearean.
BRZEZINSKI: It’s all so awful.
SCARBOROUGH: It is all so awful.
BRZEZINSKI: What's going on in your state? Who do you want? Nobody, right? Nobody.
JIM VANDEHEI: As somebody who has three cheese heads in his TV room downstairs. I wouldn't put one on my head either. You kind of look like a dope when you do.
SCARBOROUGH: Oh, do you really?
BRZEZINSKI: Well he doesn’t need the cheesehead hat to do that.
VANDEHEI: You do. It’s a big chunk of cheese. There is no way to do it and not look like a dope.
SCARBOROUGH: So you have them and you never wear them?
VANDEHEI: Nah, I have them signed by different [Green Bay] Packers.
SCARBOROUGH: Have ever worn one at a game?
VANDEHEI: I have never worn one at a game.
SCARBOROUGH: How’s Ted Cruz going to do in your home state?
VANDEHEI: Probably win, right? Certainly looks like he'll win. And I think to me it really does reset the race in a different way.
BRZEZINSKI: Jim VandeHei.
VANDEHEI: He should win.
BRZEZINSKI: Oh, my lord. It's just all so painful to watch them in their final moments trying to make—to like close it. And it's Ted Cruz and his delivery. I'm sorry. I can't stand it. You guys all can't stand it. I'm sorry.
SCARBOROUGH: To break into a “to be or not to be” when talking about a cheesehead.
BRZEZINSKI: It's all so unbelievably disingenuous.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, that’s some rough talk.
MARK HALPERIN: About the cheesehead?
BRZEZINSKI: Just, the performance. Like what is all this? It's not true, right? Come on, Nicolle. You watch like this. This is how Nicolle watches Ted Cruz.
HALPERIN: He’s a staffer who became the candidate
NICOLLE WALLACE: That’s the cold medicine.
BRZEZINSKI: No! It's you who have run campaigns who knows it's so painful.
HALPERIN: He was a staffer. And when staffers become candidates they're self-conscious about the performance. It’s always the case.
BRZEZINSKI: Really?
SCARBOROUGH: What do you think Nicolle? You have another theory.
BRZEZINSKI: Is it me? Am I being mean? Because I know if it was Hillary Clinton everyone would say it’s sexist, you know.
WALLACE: I think Ted Cruz is only appealing in the context of the choices that remain. And so—
[Laughter]
VANDEHEI: That’s a great campaign ad.
[Inaudible]
BRZEZINSKI: Is that how he talks at the family dinner table? “Children, please get your plates.”
SCARBOROUGH: Mika thinks he’s a phony.
WALLACE [to Mika]: I think it is. I mean, we’ve heard him read a child’s fairy tale. I mean my god. I don't know how those kids sleep.
VANDEHEI: We should do the rest of the show that way.
WALLACE: Him read Dr. Seuss?
BRZEZINSKI: I mean, wouldn’t you? I’d have to say, you would watch as if you were watching a slow-motion car wreck.
