The Atlantic's editor-in-chief Jeffrey Goldberg and PBS White House correspondent Yamiche Alcindor joined MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell on Monday to marvel over the eloquence of Barack Obama and trash Donald Trump and his conspiracy-kook supporters.
Goldberg came on to talk about his interview with Obama to promote the new book. Goldberg said Obama has engaged in a lot of introspection about whether he was "too slow to call out some pretty significant shifts not only in ideological sorting in America, what the conservative movement was doing, but also how people were getting information. He talks a lot about the tech companies and how they create these echo chambers." As opposed to current MSNBC contributors who created pro-Obama "echo chambers"....that included Jeffrey Goldberg.
The "mainstream media" was such an echo chamber during the Obama years that it was hard to distinguish the journalists from YouTubers who bathe in milk and Froot Loops.
Goldberg would also brought back memories of journalists fawning over Obama's rhetorical style. "This is Barack Obama we're talking about. He measures every word, and he speaks in whole paragraphs, which is not necessarily something we're used to in a president these days." Obama is just a concerned citizen who "is very, very upset about some structural changes in American politics and in the way we consume information and he thinks that those are very, very dangerous for the future of democracy."
As well he should be, according to Mitchell, because some people voted for Donald Trump, "Especially with 73 million people voting for Donald Trump and many of those people believing the conspiracy theories now." As opposed to Trump being a Russian agent....
After playing a clip of Obama lamenting "truth decay" on 60 Minutes, Mitchell, who helped Obama win re-election by unapologetically propagating fake news before fake news became a commonly used phrase, turned to Alcindor. "You watch this every day at the White House. You face him down at these briefings. It's no longer what we used to expect since the Nixon White House from the White House podium or from the State Department at all."
Naturally Alcindor agreed and said that the Trump era will be defined by lies, "the heart of the Trump administration, which is that they had a war on the very idea of truth. They had a war on the media. They said that they needed to make the media the opposition so people wouldn't even believe reporters when they were off telling the real things that were happening in this country."
Notice how arrogant reporters easily conflate "the truth" with "the media."
Reminiscing for the days where politicians were apparently truth tellers, Alcindor concluded by praising Obama's diagnosis of the Trump era. "He said the biggest problem is this idea that we don't have a baseline idea of truth that we can all then argue about."
This segment was sponsored by Dell.
Here is a transcript of the November 16 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:51 PM ET
ANDREA MITCHELL: What surprised you most in your conversation? Because it strikes me that he's also very self-reflective as to whether he was too restrained as president and even the first years of the Trump administration in not coming out strongly against Trump and his supporters.
JEFFREY GOLDBERG: Right. That's a good question. One of the things he mentioned to me and one of the things that emerges in the book is this idea, this question that he asks himself, was I too restrained, was I too slow to call out some pretty significant shifts not only in ideological sorting in America, what the conservative movement was doing, but also how people were getting information. He talks a lot about the tech companies and how they create these echo chambers. He does believe that he might have been a little bit slow to put the pieces together. But to be fair, I think everyone was somewhat slow to understand how politics was changing. I would also say that he is still somewhat restrained.This is Barack Obama we're talking about. He measures every word, and he speaks in whole paragraphs, which is not necessarily something we're used to in a president these days. But he's always somewhat restrained. But yes, he is also having a good time. He did note to me that as an ex-president he doesn't quite have to weigh his words the way he used to. He's not running for anything ever again, one assumes. And so he is unleashed to some degree and he is very, very upset about some structural changes in American politics and in the way we consume information and he thinks that those are very, very dangerous for the future of democracy.
MITCHELL: Especially with 73 million people voting for Donald Trump and many of those people believing the conspiracy theories now. Yamiche Alcindor, Obama on 60 Minutes also spoke about what he described as truth decay. Let's watch.
BARACK OBAMA: What we've seen is what some people call truth decay, something that's been accelerated by outgoing-President Trump, this sense that not only do we not have to tell the truth but the truth doesn't even matter.MITCHELL: Yamiche, you watch this every day at the White House. You face him down at these briefings. It's no longer what we used to expect since the Nixon White House from the White House podium or from the State Department at all.
YAMICHE ALCINDOR: That's right. And when we think about the Trump presidency, there are two things that really are the foundation of President Trump. The first is Kellyanne Conway saying that there could be alternative facts. She said that very, very early in the presidency. And then Rudy Giuliani, his personal attorney, saying truth isn't truth. Both of those statements were said on NBC News, and both of those statements get at the heart of the Trump administration, which is that they had a war on the very idea of truth. They had a war on the media. They said that they needed to make the media the opposition so people wouldn't even believe reporters when they were off telling the real things that were happening in this country.And now as we're all living through a pandemic that's scary, right? It's so scary that the president has continued to downplay the virus when he wants to talk about it, which now is very few and in between. But there are people out there, millions of them as you noted, who voted for President Trump, who only believe what he tells them. I was in Miami a couple days before the election and I was talking to people and they were continuing to say the coronavirus is just like the flu, it's going to be fine. And I had to tell them no, if you look at the statistics from our own country, you look at scientists, it's not the flu. But so many people only believe what certain networks tell them and what the president tells them, and that is the biggest problem in this country. And President Obama said that very clearly. He said the biggest problem is this idea that we don't have a baseline idea of truth that we can all then argue about.
