On Sunday's AM Joy, during a discussion of recent mass shootings and gun control, host Joy Reid set up frequent guest Kurt Bardella to cheer for the deaths of Fox News viewers as host Reid described the "world view" advanced by conservative media as being "crusty" and "creepy."
The MSNBC host also fretted over the tendency of Republicans to bring up the high homicide rate in Chicago during discussions of gun control, with panel member Tiffany Cross of The Beat D.C. suggesting racism as she called "Chicago" a "euphemism for black."
Reid turned to Cross and complained: "Every time you try to bring up the issue of mass shootings and preventing them, you get the reflexive 'Chicago.'" After the AM Joy host complained that the guns used in the Parkland school shootings were "perfectly legally purchased," Cross began her response: "I think with the Republican Party Chicago is their euphemism or subtext for 'black,' and we should just call that out for what it is."
It is noteworthy that, while Reid tried to downplay Chicago's problems, even the Rev. Jesse Jackson last year complained about Chicago's situation, likening the plight of residents to "international terrorism," in an appearance on MSNBC.
In her next question, Reid brought up older audience members of the conservative media as she turned to Bardella and posed: "At some point, does the conservative media run out of viewers because it is appealing to sort of an old kind of crusty, creepy, world view that these young people who are a big cohort of the American population do not share?"
It did not seem to occur to either Reid or Bardella that many younger people become more conservative as they get older and increasingly consume right-leaning media as Bardella responded: "I think there is some credence to the idea that, at some point, just the process of evolution, some of these viewers, they are going to thankfully die off, and that'll be the end of that."
After complaining that Fox News does not react to violent crimes by white men in the same way as violence by immigrants, he concluded: "We're at a point where Donald Trump and the Republican Party, they are complicit in what's going on in this country. The next time there is a mass shooting and nothing has been done to prevent it or stop it, the Republican Party and Donald Trump own it and are complicit in it."
Host Reid responded, "Absolutely," before moving to her next question.
