On Tuesday’s edition of MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, host Stephanie Ruhle welcomed political analyst Juanita Tolliver onto the program during a segment about Sen. Lindsey Graham’s 15 week abortion bill to claim that Republicans are pro-life because they seek to control and punish women.
After playing a clip of Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer declaring that “MAGA Republicans” believe in “your body, our choice,” Ruhle responded as if that was the most brilliant and clever thing she’s ever heard, “Your body, our choice, should that be a bumper sticker right now?”
Tolliver naturally agreed with Ruhle and Schumer:
I mean no lies detected on my end, Steph, run with it and I think Democrats need to keep it front and center, and this egg from-- that we got today in this form of this horrible national abortion ban I think is going to do that work for Democrats, so that they can continue to leverage momentum they have and they continue to draw the contrast with the extremist MAGA Republicans that they’ve painted them to be, that Republicans have lived up to being because they've shown that they are hell-bent on controlling and punishing women and pregnant people.
It's hard to take anyone seriously who uses “pregnant people” without irony, but making matters worse is that she ignored Ruhle’s earlier reporting about the bill restricting abortion to 15 weeks, which is not exactly a “horrible national abortion ban.”
As for Ruhle, she missed that Tolliver and Schumer used the phrase “MAGA Republicans” to cover generic conservative positions while the media keeps defending President Biden’s use of the phrase, declaring it only refers to election deniers and rioters.
Still, Tolliver encouraged Democrats to run with her dishonest framing of Graham’s bill, “They've shown that this was never going end with Roe being overturned and this is their intention and I hope that Democrats across the country run that 15 seconds that we heard from Lindsey Graham earlier today where he said when Republicans take the Congress this is going to be put for a vote, this is what they want to focus on and I need that in ads across the country.”
A 15-week ban is not an extremist position, but Tolliver still held out hope that even Republicans will now vote for Democrats, “what we've seen thus far is that Democrats are mobilizing and historic rates, independents are swinging more Democrat and even some anti, or excuse me, pro-choice Republicans are even willing to vote and support Democratic candidates because none of them want to do anything with this outrageous push from the GOP.”
This segment was sponsored by Discover.
Here is a transcript for the September 13 show:
MSNBC The 11th Hour with Stephanie Ruhle
9/14/2022
11:27 PM ET
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Your body, our choice, should that be a bumper sticker right now?
JUANITA TOLLIVER: I mean no lies detected on my end, Steph, run with it and I think Democrats need to keep it front and center, and this egg from-- that we got today in this form of this horrible national abortion ban I think is going to do that work for Democrats, so that they can continue to leverage momentum they have and they continue to draw the contrast with the extremist MAGA Republicans that they’ve painted them to be, that Republicans have lived up to being because they've shown that they are hell-bent on controlling and punishing women and pregnant people.
They've shown that this was never going end with Roe being overturned and this is their intention and I hope that Democrats across the country run that 15 seconds that we heard from Lindsey Graham earlier today where he said when Republicans take the Congress this is going to be put for a vote, this is what they want to focus on and I need that in ads across the country.
I know multiple progressive organizations are investing in ad campaigns, they need to put that clip in there, so that voters know plain as day what’s at stake, because what is clear based on what we've seen thus far is that Democrats are mobilizing and historic rates, independents are swinging more Democrat and even some anti, or excuse me, pro-choice Republicans are even willing to vote and support Democratic candidates because none of them want to do anything with this outrageous push from the GOP.
