ABC political analyst and faux Republican Matthew Dowd spent Wednesday afternoon with fellow liberal Republican Nicolle Wallace’s Deadline White House, serenading MSNBC viewers with the claim that Trump’s “fire and fury” statement could easily be said by North Korea dictator Kim Jong-un.
Receiving zero pushback, Dowd also speculated that Europe is more scared of Trump than a murderous communist like Kim Jong-un, so there’s that for what passes as acceptable political rhetoric. Surely the reaction would different if someone stated that about Barack Obama.
Wallace did her part in teeing up fellow ex-Bush official:
Let me just ask you about the character of a president who would threaten fire and fury without having enough respect for his military leadership, for his national security adviser, for his chief of staff and for his secretary of state to give them a heads up.
Dowd began by imploring everyone to “end this whole story that keeps developing that somehow Donald Trump is going to change and be something different than he is” as no one or anything (even retired General John Kelly) have been able to change Trump.
This set the table for part one of Dowd’s imprudent tangentt:
There weren’t a strategy in this. To me, if you read a paragraph in the beginning of the newspaper that said this. A bellicose, threatening, emotionally immature, insecure leader did “X,” a year ago would you have thought the President of the United States was that person or would you thought that the head of North Korea was that person? That's the problem today.
He soon added, when taking into consideration “stable actors” versus unstable ones: “[I]t's hard for me to believe that the people in Europe aren't looking at this situation today and who are they more worried about? That's actually an honest question in this time that we have.”
Dowd is arguably correct in Trump’s ill-timing when it comes to the “fire and fury” comments in relation to the Nagasaki anniversary and his tweets about transgender people in the military. Fair enough.
But putting a U.S. President who uses colorful language to someone who starves millions of people and used anti-aircraft guns to murder security officials? Give me a break. Spare us this pathetic attempt at moral equivalency.
This was not the first such piece of lunacy from Dowd. For frequent fliers here at NewsBusters, Dowd makes near daily appearances on our pages. Just this summer, Dowd has argued that Trump’s tweets are as distracting as skinny dippers and Congress is treating Trump “like a child” so he can’t “harm” them.
Dowd and Wallace continue to show on a daily basis why they’re such beloved members of the New York-Washington media elite.
Whether it’s Wallace suggesting the Trump immigration policy push last week centered on “xenophobia” or Dowd touting single-payer health care, folks like these have become case studies in what the media want to see from conservatives and Republicans.
Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from MSNBC’s Deadline: White House on August 9:
MSNBC’s Deadline: White House
August 9, 2017
4:16 p.m. EasternNICOLLE WALLACE: Let me just ask you about the character of a president who would threaten fire and fury without having enough respect for his military leadership, for his national security adviser, for his chief of staff and for his secretary of state to give them a heads up.
MATTHEWS DOWD: So the first thing I hope we can end this whole story that keeps developing that somehow Donald Trump is going to change and be something different than he is, and he has some master strategy he's going to take over the world and make the United States – let's just end that. General Kelly made no difference, every speech that Donald Trump has made no difference, the statements that he’s made, yesterday — had made a lot of difference badly in this. But they weren't planned. There weren’t a strategy in this To me, if you read a paragraph in the beginning of the newspaper that said this. A bellicose, threatening, emotionally immature, insecure leader did “X,” a year ago would you have thought the President of the United States was that person or would you thought that the head of North Korea was that person? That's the problem today. When we talk about stable actors and people we can count on in all of this, it's hard for me to believe that the people in Europe aren't looking at this situation today and who are they more worried about? That's actually an honest question in this time that we have. The other thing that he doesn’t — I think Donald Trump does — I think he has no consent of history. Today is the anniversary of dropping the bomb on Nagasaki, right? That is the anniversary today. When he announced that transgender people were no longer to be in the military it was on the anniversary of Harry Truman desegregating the military. He has no concept of what he says in how it relates to history and what impact it has on the world.
SARA FAGEN: It goes to Nicolle's point there's no vetting process there because, in a normal White House somebody would look at the history of the issues that are being talked about and make sure that the President and the rest of the staff knew, hey, if we're going to do something on transgender people in the military, we might want to wait a week.
WALLACE: And Michael Steele, just quickly, I bang my head on this table, but I did that a lot during the campaign and it actually hurts if anyone’s is wondering where the bleep are the Republicans?
MICHAEL STEEL: I think right now the President is moving so fast during a congressional recess that there's not a lot of response. And here you see Senator McCain —
WALLACE: So fast. He's going in one direction. Down.
STEEL: You see John McCain showing up about that. What's terrifying to the earlier points here, they're now comparing this to the Cuban missile crisis. In the Cuban missile crisis, the hinge between war and peace, was carefully chosen words between the president of the united States and we have to illusion that, in this situation, we will hear carefully vetted, appropriate words from the President of the United States.
(....)
4:20 p.m. Eastern
DOWD: The only hope I have in this — the only hope I have in this, I think them as the five linemen protecting the Americans in the pocket.
WALLACE: Name them and then we’re going to have to hit pause.
DOWD: Nikki Haley, General Mattis, General Kelly, General McMaster, and Rex Tillerson, right? And I think those five — there’s like a trip wire, right? That's my hope that all of Donald Trump's belligerence and the stuff he does and not reacting — hoping he doesn't react emotionally the five people are between the American public and something really bad happening.
