Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's Andrea Mitchell Reports, New York Times political reporter Jeremy Peters worried that the Republican-controlled Congress will hold investigations into the Joe Biden administration that will "make Benghazi look like child's play."
After he agreed with MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell that "this is a whole new level of hostility and adversarial behavior," Peters also suggested that some congressional Republicans "exist solely to get on Fox News." As if MSNBC didn't feature plenty of Congressional Democrats who want to get out their liberal message unchallenged.
Peters ironically began his commentary by deriding Republican complaints about a "deep state" as a "conspiracy theory" even though his own paper ran an op-ed by then-anonymous Homeland Security official Miles Taylor, who reassured Times readers that people like him working for the federal government were working to undermine the policies of the Donald Trump administration -- precisely what conservatives alleged that the "deep state" was doing.
After noting Republican plans to restrain the IRS, he fretted:
I mean, this kind of stuff is going to make Benghazi look like child's play. I mean, I think the sheer volume of inquiries and the subpoenas you're going to see over the next two years is really going to, I mean, likely lead to even more government paralysis than we've seen in divided government in the past.
After Mitchell predicted that the Biden administration will appeal Republican actions to the U.S. Supreme Court -- which she claimed was "Trump-dominated" -- Peters joined the MSNBC host in lamenting that the expected actions by Republicans would be "a whole new level of hostility and adversarial behavior," leading Peters to refer back to the Tea Party movement:
...it's happened in large part because these folks have a bigger megaphone than they've ever had before. I mean, you'll recall that, during the Tea Party insurrection of 2010, you had all of these new freshman members who were empowered and emboldened to stand up to the leadership and defy people like John Boehner and Eric Cantor.
He then added:
Well, I mean, the Tea Party kind of looked like a dress rehearsal to what we're seeing now. What we're seeing now -- these people like Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert -- they are -- it's almost as if they exist solely to be on Fox News, right?
The two went on to agree that such behavior by Republicans was "performative" and "not policy-driven." He then concluded:
And the, you know, they'll try to dress it up and say, "Yes, we have, you know, these rule changes that we want, that's real, that that's policy," but it's not. It's all about empowering this fringe at the expense of a leader who knows how to legislate and who presumably wants to legislate, like Kevin McCarthy.
This episode of Andrea Mitchell Reports was sponsored in part by The Farmer's Dog. Their contact information is linked.
Transcript follows:
MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell Reports
January 10, 2023
12:21 p.m. EasternJEREMY PETERS, NEW YORK TIMES MEDIA AND POLITICS REPORTER: A lot of this, Andrea, is reminiscent of the deep state kind of conspiracy theory thinking that you've heard from Republicans for the last five, six years, right? And now that they're empowered in the House of Representatives, I think that you can expect to see more of that. I mean, this is, what, the first day, and already you have slashing IRS funding and the establishment of these new investigatory committees.
I mean, this kind of stuff is going to make Benghazi look like child's play. I mean, I think the sheer volume of inquiries and the subpoenas you're going to see over the next two years is really going to, I mean, likely lead to even more government paralysis than we've seen in divided government in the past.
ANDREA MITCHELL: Certainly, these investigations into the January 6th DOJ investigation, this will go up to the Supreme Court because the Justice Department is not going to, you know, let this stand, and then we'll have to see how the Trump Supreme Court -- Trump-dominated Supreme Court handles this issue, but this is a whole new level of hostility and adversarial behavior --
PETERS: Yeah.
MITCHELL: -- than anything we've seen before.
PETERS: Oh, it is. And it's because -- it's happened in large part because these folks have a bigger megaphone than they've ever had before. I mean, you'll recall that, during the Tea Party insurrection of 2010, you had all of these new freshman members who were empowered and emboldened to stand up to the leadership and defy people like John Boehner and Eric Cantor.
Well, I mean, the Tea Party kind of looked like a dress rehearsal to what we're seeing now. What we're seeing now -- these people like Matt Gaetz and Lauren Boebert -- they are -- it's almost as if they exist solely to be on Fox News, right?
MITCHELL: Well, it's performative --
PETERS: It's performative.
MITCHELL: -- and it's not policy-driven.
PETERS: It's not. And the, you know, they'll try to dress it up and say, "Yes, we have, you know, these rule changes that we want, that's real, that that's policy," but it's not. It's all about empowering this fringe at the expense of a leader who knows how to legislate and who presumably wants to legislate, like Kevin McCarthy.
