MSNBC Live guest host Chris Jansing welcomed California Democratic Rep. Ted Lieu on her Thursday show for a softball interview where she asserted that Republicans are having a difficult time figuring out right from wrong. Towards the end of the segment, she again flunked basic civics.
As Jansing and Lieu were discussing the current controversy over Roger Stone's sentence and just what role, if any, President Trump and Attorney General Barr had in the Justice Department's revision request, Jansing confidently asserted that Democrats are right and Republicans are wrong. She declared, "there are 192 members of Congress who have studied or practiced law. That doesn't give them a lock on understanding the way things should work or what's right or wrong."
Jansing, however, was not content to question the morality of the controversy, but the intellect of Republican members of Congress: "You would think there would have been some training about the way things work, how they should work, and even basically as every kid in grade school learns about the independence of the judiciary."
Actually, every kid in grade school learns how the judiciary and the DOJ and the department's prosecutors are not the same thing.
She then asked, "are you at all surprised more haven't spoken up and do you see any kind of red line for this president or for the attorney general that you think would have more people standing up in Congress?"
Lieu naturally agreed that Democrats are awesome and "that Republicans have kneeled before him and bowed down."
Here is a transcript for the February 13 show:
MSNBC
MSNBC Live with Velshi and Ruhle
1:23 PM ET
CHRIS JANSING: So let me ask you finally, there are 192 members of Congress who have studied or practiced law. That doesn't give them a lock on understanding the way things should work or what's right or wrong but you would think there would have been some training about the way things work, how they should work, and even basically as every kid in grade school learns about the independence of the judiciary. So, are you at all surprised more haven't spoken up and do you see any kind of red line for this president or for the attorney general that you think would have more people standing up in Congress?
TED LIEU: Well, there are members of Congress who are Democrats, we have stood up to Donald Trump. There are ones you mentioned that Republicans have kneeled before him and bowed down and that's very disappointing to me. Last term the American people flipped the House because they saw the Republican-controlled House essentially enable every crazy thing Donald Trump wanted, and they flipped the House. I think the U.S. Senate is going flip this November because the American people actually want a check and balance. They don't just want people that bow down to one man.
