On Sunday's AM Joy, there was another case of liberal projection as MoveOn.org senior advisor and frequent MSNBC guest Karine Jean-Pierre complained that "[w]e have a sexual predator as the President of the United States who lies constantly." This in spite of the fact that the group she works for was founded in 1998 primarily for the purpose of defending President Bill Clinton from impeachment over his sexual misbehavior.
After host Joy Reid recalled a recent New York Post article that used a photograph of Senator Al Franken posing with the Huffington Post's Arianna Huffington to suggest that the Minnesota Democrat had groped her, the MSNBC host went to her liberal guest for reaction.
Jean-Pierre fretted that the media are trying to be too even-handed in their coverage of sexual misconduct by Democrats and Republicans as she began:
I think that the media is in this weird conundrum right now because normally -- in a normal presidency in a normal kind of Republican-controlled, I guess, Congress -- you would want to have a, you know, a good -- you want to have to support -- or represent both sides equally. But we're not. This is not normal. This is not a normal time. We have a sexual predator as the President of the United States who lies constantly, whose people lie for him. So you really can't cover everything the same.
After likening Trump and Moore in their reactions to sexual misconduct accusations, Jean-Pierre made her latest contribution of imaginary racism into the conversation:
And there's one more layer that I want to take this down to, Joy, which is: If Roy Moore was a black man, Donald Trump would not believe him. So there's that part of it, too. I mean, Donald Trump is saying that Doug Jones is bad on crime. You have -- on one hand, you have Doug Jones -- who stood up to the KKK -- and then you have on the other hand, you have Roy Moore who attacked minors -- who sexually assaulted minors.
In that scenario, there's only one criminal there, and that's the pedophile which is Roy Moore, but that is Donald Trump's way. Everything that is key -- everything that is major -- everything that is big that he does has this awful racist element to it.
As host Reid agreed, she also mis-remembered the timeline of the Central Park Five case as she complained that Trump did not believe their claims of innocence even after they were "exonerated." Here's Reid:
Yeah, and ask the Central Park Five whether they believe people who claim they're innocent. And they were children -- they were minors the same age as Roy Moore's victims. They proclaimed their innocence. Even after DNA proved they were innocent, Donald Trump didn't take their word for it. Interesting, these are black and brown young men -- he's like, "I don't believe them," even after they're exonerated.
The MSNBC host did not inform viewers that most of the Central Park Five initially made confessions of involvement in attacking the jogger before recanting. Additionally, according to the film by Ken Burns that was released to portray them sympathetically, their defense attorneys seemed to accept that they were guilty of "beating up other people" in Central Park at the time the jogger was attacked -- which could have been their "alibi" for why they could not have made the attack they were convicted of.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday, November 26, AM Joy on MSNBC:
KARINE JEAN-PIERRE, MOVEON.ORG ADVISOR: I think that the media is in this weird conundrum right now because normally -- in a normal presidency in a normal kind of Republican-controlled, I guess, Congress -- you would want to have a, you know, a good -- you want to have to support -- or represent both sides equally. But we're not. This is not normal. This is not a normal time. We have a sexual predator as the President of the United States who lies constantly, whose people lie for him. So you really can't cover everything the same.
And so, to the point of the sexual harassment will Al Franken -- what he did was appalling, and, yes, he should never have done it. The difference is, he's apologized. He's apologized -- Donald Trump has not -- and the reason Donald Trump loves Roy Moore is literally taking a page out of Donald Trump's playbook, which is: Attack, deny, let the time run out, and also say, "Hey, I might frivolously do this lawsuit against all of these women." And there's one more layer that I want to take this down to, Joy, which is: If Roy Moore was a black man, Donald Trump would not believe him.
JOY REID: Yeah.
JEAN-PIERRE: So there's that part of it, too. I mean, Donald Trump is saying that Doug Jones is bad on crime. You have -- on one hand, you have Doug Jones -- who stood up to the KKK -- and then you have on the other hand, you have Roy Moore who attacked minors -- who sexually assaulted minors. In that scenario, there's only one criminal there, and that's the pedophile which is Roy Moore, but that is Donald Trump's way. Everything that is key -- everything that is major -- everything that is big that he does has this awful racist element to it.
REID: Yeah, and ask the Central Park Five whether they believe people who claim they're innocent. And they were children -- they were minors the same age as Roy Moore's victims. They proclaimed their innocence. Even after DNA proved they were innocent, Donald Trump didn't take their word for it. Interesting, these are black and brown young men -- he's like, "I don't believe them," even after they're exonerated.
