On Monday's MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle, viewers got to see another case which demonstrates that the purpose of a Republican or right-leaning MSNBC contributor is to avoid disagreeing too aggressively with the more stridently liberal commentators as contributor and former Ted Cruz aide Rick Tyler failed to counter claims that Judge Brett Kavanaugh has "radical" views on abortion and gun rights.
At 9:17 a.m. Eastern, as the panel discussed whether it would help or harm Republicans in the elections to have a battle over confirming Judge Kavanaugh to the U.S. Supreme Court, liberal talk radio host and frequent MSNBC guest Mark Thompson argued that Democrats could expose that his views are "not in the best interests of Americans."
Tyler then mildly began to counter: "I think Judge Kavanaugh is pretty mainstream. There's no opinions that we've seen so far that are really -- seems that he's radical, and --"
Thompson then jumped back in to attack Kavanaugh's views on Roe v. Wade and Second Amendment rights: "He's opposed to Roe. He supports semi-automatic weapons, if not automatic weapons, being represented in the Second Amendment. He doesn't believe a President should be investigated, which contradicts what he did on the Starr team."
As previously pointed out by NewsBusters, specific polling questions what abortion restrictions Americans would support have found that overwhelming majorities of poll respondents support restrictions that would require overturning Roe v. Wade to implement.
A January 2018 Marist poll revealed that 76 percent of Americans would support banning abortion after the first three months of pregnancy, and as many as 50 percent were open to banning abortion throughout pregnancy except in "cases of rape, incest or to save the life of the mother." Even some of those who identified as "pro-choice" voiced support for these restrictions.
Polling has also found that almost 70 percent of Americans are open to banning abortion when a heartbeat in an unborn baby can be detected -- which, if enacted, would mean banning abortion about six weeks into a pregnancy.
Other surveys which suggest most voters support Roe seem to be a reflection of most Americans not being aware that the specifics of Roe would prevent restrictions that they, in fact, support.
Instead of making any such important point to inform the audience, Tyler switched to discussing trade as he responded:
And people are going to have legitimate disagreements about that. I think the judge thing is over. I think that's lost, and I think the Democrats would be better to focus on their economic message of the future where Trump -- as I pointed out earlier -- these protectionist policies are going to hurt America. We don't need -- we need real farms, real farmers -- not fake farmers with $12 billion welfare bailouts.
Before concluding the segment, host Stephanie Ruhle injected: "The tax cuts helped a lot of big companies -- the question is: Did they actually help voters?"
