It’s been 273 days since Hillary Clinton last held a press conference and even some on MSNBC are starting to lose patience with Clinton’s antics that even-keeled legal correspondent Ari Melber flipped out during Thursday’s Hardball on EMILY’s List president Stephanie Schriock for the shameless talking point that Clinton “talk[s] to the press all the time.”
In an analogy that few if any have employed, Melber chided Schriock for going along with this defense of Clinton and equated her dodging of the press with irresponsible parents skipping out on parent/teacher conferences by claiming they’re doing enough by occasionally bumping into their child’s teacher in public.
Melber broached the subject with Schriock by agreeing with former Cruz aide Rick Tyler’s assessment about Clinton’s silence that he concluded was “mildly depressing” yet “bonkers she won't hold press conferences.”
When he asked Schriock if Clinton knows that “when she becomes president you are supposed to hold regular press conferences,” the pro-abortion activist only mustered the line that “she's talking to the press all the time” before Melber and Tyler exploded:
RICK TYLER: Oh, we’ve heard that.
MELBER: That is so —
SCHRIOCK: But she is!
MELBER: That is so, so beside the point.
SCHRIOCK: She is doing interviews with the press and she is doing that and we’re going to see in these last 67 days a lot of activity.
MELBER: Can I just, Stephanie, thought like, as a talking point, Stephanie, we hear that talking point —
TYLER: That one’s not working.
MELBER: — so much. It's like — it’s like I hear this so much, I don't even know why the Clinton campaign thinks it works.
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It was following this back-and-forth that Melber laid out his analogy about parents skipping parent/teacher conferences but try to wiggle out of them (i.e. save face):
If there are parent/teacher conferences, right, and you keep skipping them and you run into the teacher at the mini mart, you say well, I talk to the teacher all the time, that's fine. The question here is are you going to the parent/teacher conference and presidents from JFK on have held regular press conferences for a reason. I don’t just say this as oh, I’m in the press. It's a larger thing and when you say, oh well, she also interacts with the press, you do know that's just crazy, right?
Like a true Clinton hack, Schriock informed Melber that Hillary’s decision making hasn’t been crazy and pivoted to tout Clinton lines on a Politico story about Bill Clinton being false (which it wasn’t) and serving as examples of “made-up scandal[s]” perpetuated by the media (which didn’t sit well with Melber and Tyler either).
“I also want to note as you were just talking about, I want to note there's been a couple of headlines, A.P. and Politico today that Politico headline about the charity today was just flat wrong and they had to change it and so we are continuing to get these questions that are like made-up scandal which just aren't true,” Schriock complained as Melber had to cut to break.
The relevant portion of the transcript from MSNBC’s Hardball on September 1 can be found below.
MSNBC’s Hardball
September 1, 2016
7:36 p.m. Eastern
ARI MELBER: When you put it like that, it's mildly depressing and Stephanie, we’re almost out of time, but Rick makes the point it is bonkers she won't hold press conferences. I mean, she knows when she becomes president you are supposed to hold regular press conferences, right?
STEPHANIE SCHRIOCK: But she's talking to the press all the time.
RICK TYLER: Oh, we’ve heard that.
MELBER: That is so —
SCHRIOCK: But she is!
MELBER: That is so, so beside the point.
SCHRIOCK: She is doing interviews with the press and she is doing that and we’re going to see in these last 67 days a lot of activity.
MELBER: Can I just, Stephanie, thought like, as a talking point, Stephanie, we hear that talking point —
TYLER: That one’s not working.
MELBER: — so much. It's like — it’s like I hear this so much, I don't even know why the Clinton campaign thinks it works.
TYLER: It doesn’t.
MELBER: If there are parent/teacher conferences, right, and you keep skipping them and you run into the teacher at the mini mart, you say well, I talk to the teacher all the time, that's fine. The question here is are you going to the parent/teacher conference and presidents from JFK on have held regular press conferences for a reason. I don’t just say this as oh, I’m in the press. It's a larger thing and when you say, oh well, she also interacts with the press, you do know that's just crazy, right?
SCHRIOCK: No. I think that's an — part of the campaign function. I think we have 67 days here where you’re going to see a lot of campaigning going on and a lot of conversation. I also want to note as you were just talking about, I want to note there's been a couple of headlines, A.P. and Politico today that Politico headline about the charity today was just flat wrong and they had to change it and so we are continuing to get these questions that are like made-up scandal which just aren't true.
MELBER: But that’s not — again — we’re out of time.
SCHRIOCK: The facts are wrong. That's a whole other piece of this conversation, too.
MELBER: We are out of time. That's not a reason not to hold press conferences. That's a reason to hold press conferences.
TYLER: Exactly right.
MELBER: Take a question from Politico and say ah, I see what you said about the GSA funding. Here's our response. We can handle a dialogue. That's what presidents do. We are out of time.
