On Saturday's AM Joy show on MSNBC, during a discussion of the current feud between President Donald Trump and MSNBC hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Democratic guest and equal rights attorney Tamara Holder degraded women in the White House as being "very, very weak-minded" and as having "smaller minds than his small hands."
Host Joy Reid set up her guest's comments by showing clips of White House Deputy Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, White House advisor Kellyanne Conway, and Melania Trump's Press secretary Stephanie Grisham defending the President. Reid then mentioned that Trump had given an appointment to Elaine Chao -- the wife of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell -- as the MSNBC host posed:
What do you make of that full-scale defense? Elaine Chao -- who is the wife of the Senate Majority Leader who President Trump gave a job to, which is an interesting tactic as well -- also defended him. What do you make of the women in Trump's life's response?
Holder immediately excoriated Trump administration women as stupid and weak:
I think that the women in Donald Trump's life probably have smaller minds than his small hands because, if they had any decency as women -- Joy, you have a father. If your father ever said anything like this about another woman, you would probably grab them by the back of the neck just like I would to my dad and say, "What are you doing? Apologize." He has continued to surround himself -- Donald Trump -- with very, very weak-minded women who are afraid of him. We are seeing Donald Trump explode from very, very far away.
She then added:
Imagine the fear that these women have when they're up close with him. You can't fight fire with fire if you're standing right next to it. It's going to explode, and you're going to blow up. So this is why he has surrounded himself with women who can't do anything other than defend him -- kind of defend him or just not say anything.
Ironically, it could similarly be recalled that, in the 1990s, then-First Lady Hillary Clinton pretended not to know about her husband President Bill Clinton's serial mistreatment of women.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Saturday, July 1, AM Joy on MSNBC:
JOY REID: And, Tamara, because the point that it does go to is -- and even for something as petty as demanding that a morning show not make fun of your fake Time magazine cover, that demanding that you be nice to him, that is really at the core of what he wants. I want to read you -- Mike and Joe actually wrote a Washington Post op-ed about this where they said he's probably mentally unfit to watch their program because he can't handle it. And they said: "-- and we can only hope that the women who are closest to him will follow their examples." The examples of people who criticize him. "It would be the height of hypocrisy to claim the mantle of women's empowerment while allowing a family member to continue such abusive conduct."
Well, I want to play for you some of how the women around Donald Trump have indeed responded to what he did. Here they are.
SARAH HUCKABEE SANDERS, DEPUTY WHITE HOUSE PRESS SECRETARY: I think the American people elected somebody who's tough, who's smart, and who's a fighter. And that's Donald Trump. And I don't think that it's a surprise to anybody that he fights fire with fire.
GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS: Do you endorse what the President sent out in those tweets?
KELLYANNE CONWAY, WHITE HOUSE ADVISOR: I endorse the President's right to fight back when he is being mercilessly attacked and when the airwaves are filled with raw sewage about him and his fitness for office.
STEPHANIE GRISHAM, PRESS SECRETARY OF MELANIA TRUMP: As the First Lady has stated publicly, when her husband gets attacked, he will punch back 10 times harder.
STEPHANOPOULOS: Kellyanne, you know we wouldn't be talking about this this morning if the President hadn't sent out those tweets yesterday.
CONWAY: Yes -- you'd be talking about Russia.
JEID: What do you make of that full-scale defense? Elaine Chao -- who is the wife of the Senate Majority Leader who President Trump gave a job to, which is an interesting tactic as well -- also defended him. What do you make of the women in Trump's life's response?
TAMARA HOLDER, EQUAL RIGHTS ATTORNEY: I think that the women in Donald Trump's life probably have smaller minds than his small hands because, if they had any decency as women -- Joy, you have a father. If your father ever said anything like this about another woman, you would probably grab them by the back of the neck just like I would to my dad and say, "What are you doing? Apologize." He has continued to surround himself -- Donald Trump -- with very, very weak-minded women who are afraid of him.
We are seeing Donald Trump explode from very, very far away. Imagine the fear that these women have when they're up close with him. You can't fight fire with fire if you're standing right next to it. It's going to explode, and you're going to blow up. So this is why he has surrounded himself with women who can't do anything other than defend him -- kind of defend him or just not say anything.
