Thursday’s The ReidOut was an exercise in irony for MSNBC viewers, thanks to hilarious lamentations from host Joy Reid and Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA) (a man she dubbed a modern-day Thaddeus Stevens) that congressional Republicans will spend the next four years investigating President-elect Joe Biden and his family.
So, to make sure we’re clear here, we have quite the dichotomy. So after four years of believing Donald Trump was an illegitimate President that had to be investigated and removed from office, the left is worried about what the right might look to probe in a Democratic presidency.
“[B]oth House and Senate Republicans have made it clear that when sort of the normal order resumes and Congress is back in session and at work, they’re not interested in doing any work that involves legislating or helping people during this awful pandemic,” Reid began, ignoring her side’s refusal to extend COVID-related relief packages or agree to more stimulus checks.
After boasting how more current and former Trump officials were stricken with the coronavirus, Reid insisted that the GOP doesn’t want to fight the virus but instead “focus on...investigating” the Biden’s and especially Hunter Biden.
Reid continued to dither and compared Schiff to a modern day Stevens for what he did in, well, relentlessly investigating that Trumps:
They want to go after the investigations that led to impeachment, a time in which I think for a lot of people, you have a sort of become the modern day Thaddeus Stevens, you know, making your argument against Trump during impeachment. They want go after the Mueller probe again. Is this what we’re going to have to sit through for four next four year, Republicans just doing investigations and refusing to legislate?
Schiff smugly replied that “we may” and lamented “[t]his obstruction of the transition” made worse by “the breakdown of the independence of the Justice Department.”
He added (click “expand”):
You wouldn’t have anything to abuse of the pardon power. You wouldn’t have the stonewalling of subpoena. You wouldn’t have to play the violation of the Hatch Act holding convention on the White House ground. But for Republicans going along with it and they’re going along with it still, and it is just tearing down our democracy. I do expect in the new Congress that, yes, they’ll continue to try to go after Joe Biden, delegitimize Joe Biden. They won’t be interested in getting things done because they will feel particularly Kevin McCarthy in the House, that if we govern well, then it impedes their ability to change the majority in the House.
We’re going to have to overcome that vote though, Joy, because the American people are counting on us. They need help right away. They can’t even wait until January. There are millions of businesses that maybe destroyed between now and January if they don’t get help. So I hope that if the Republicans adopt that kind of obstructionism, that they pay a heavy price for it at the polls, but I don’t want to see us sacrifice, you know, the American people during this pandemic for the political interest Republicans hope to gain by doing nothing.
In other parts of the interview, Reid brought up the 9/11 Commission to further the insistence that President Trump will cause another 9/11 by not immediately conceding to Joe Biden and, instead, “people fear what Trump might do that’s really dangerous and authoritarian, like try to seize power and use the military to do it.”
Reid played a clip of Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Gen. Mark Milley reiterating how the military oath isn’t to any person or ruler and then wondered if Trump will enact a coup of sorts to stay in office (click “expand”):
REID: So, for yourself, as somebody who is in the gang of eight, you know, that you get lots of these intelligence briefings, do you have any concern whatsoever that Donald Trump will try to go to extraordinary means, including trying to use his role as commander in chief to stay in power or is that something that people should just let go and disabuse themselves of that fear?
SCHIFF: Well, in my view, he’s gone to extreme position in denying the election in making a massive fraudulent claim about people’s votes. But will he go additional distance and seek to, you know, essentially effectuate a military coup? No. He may want to, for all I know, the military is not going to go along with that. I have confidence they will reject that. I think General Milley’s comments were very carefully written to send a message. That was not an accident that he chose the words he used today and any number of current and former military people would say the very same thing. So I feel confident about that. But, look, the other risks are very real. Other nations are not sitting still. Our adversaries look at this period of disarray. We are already suffering a foreign policy defeat right now because one of the pillars of American foreign policy for decades has been the promulgation, the propagation of democracy, support for democracy in democratic institutions. You know, we preach to other countries when you lose an election, you allow a peaceful transition of power. Autocrats claim massive fraud. We don’t do that in the United States. You shouldn’t do that. That pillar of our democracy promotion has just been destroyed. I mean, how do we make those arguments with a straight face now given what president is doing?
Someone get Joy a tinfoil hat. She might need it in searching for the real hackers.
This irony meter-breaking segment was made possible by advertisers such as Buick (a division of General Motors), Chase, and Sandals. Follow the links to the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from November 12, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
November 12, 2020
7:03 p.m. EasternJOY REID: And, you know, Representative Schiff, it is difficult to suss out what to believe about why Republicans are enabling this, right, the idea that Trump is sad and need to let him work through grief, to me, doesn’t track because behind the scene, they’re telling every reporter who listen to them they can’t stand him, right? And so I’ve heard everything from they’re out there, you know, they’re in there shredding documents because they’re have been so much malfeasance in these agencies, they don’t want to let the Biden team in because they might start going through the books. Two Republicans are just nakedly unconcerned about national security because it’s all about Georgia. For you, what do you think it is?
CONGRESSMAN ADAM SCHIFF (D-CA): I think you’re absolutely right. It’s about two things. It’s about Georgia and it’s about 2024. It’s about Mitch McConnell not wanting to upset Donald Trump when the Senate majority may hang in a balance of Georgia. If senators like McConnell and McCarthy and others do the responsible thing, and they say, Mr. President, you lost, that’s how the system works. You need to move on. We need to have a smooth transition. We stand for the peaceful transfer of power in this country. Then he takes his ball and goes home from Georgia. And nothing matters more to Mitch McConnell than maintaining his position as majority leader. For the others, for many of the others, they want to run for president. And they don’t want to alienate him even though he may be a competitor in four years. And then for members in between those two, the presidential aspirants and Mitch McConnell, you have, you know, what we have seen for last four years and that is they don’t want to be on the losing side of an angry tweet from the president. They don’t want to get pilloried by Sean Hannity or Tucker Carlson. And so their conviction goes out the window.
REID: It feels like cowardice to me, I’m sorry to say. You know, the 9/11 Commission has warned that a shorter transition period could actually be dangerous to the country because our enemies can see just what our allies can see, that we are -- you know, sort of everything is -- the balls are all thrown up in the air and Trump has sort of disappeared from the national scene, on COVID and everything else. I want to play you what General Milley said though yesterday. Because one of the things that people fear, because, you know, in the absence of something happening people fear what Trump might do that’s really dangerous and authoritarian, like try to seize power and use the military to do it. But this is what the General Milley had to say yesterday and it seems like he was calling Trump out. Take a listen.
CHAIRMAN OF THE JOINT CHIEFS OF STAFF, GEN. MARK MILLEY: We are unique among armies. We are unique among military. We do not take an oath to a king or a queen, a tyrant or a dictator. We do not take oath to an individual.
REID: So, for yourself, as somebody who is in the gang of eight, you know, that you get lots of these intelligence briefings, do you have any concern whatsoever that Donald Trump will try to go to extraordinary means, including trying to use his role as commander in chief to stay in power or is that something that people should just let go and disabuse themselves of that fear?
SCHIFF: Well, in my view, he’s gone to extreme position in denying the election in making a massive fraudulent claim about people’s votes. But will he go additional distance and seek to, you know, essentially effectuate a military coup? No. He may want to, for all I know, the military is not going to go along with that. I have confidence they will reject that. I think General Milley’s comments were very carefully written to send a message. That was not an accident that he chose the words he used today and any number of current and former military people would say the very same thing. So I feel confident about that. But, look, the other risks are very real. Other nations are not sitting still. Our adversaries look at this period of disarray. We are already suffering a foreign policy defeat right now because one of the pillars of American foreign policy for decades has been the promulgation, the propagation of democracy, support for democracy in democratic institutions. You know, we preach to other countries when you lose an election, you allow a peaceful transition of power. Autocrats claim massive fraud. We don’t do that in the United States. You shouldn’t do that. That pillar of our democracy promotion has just been destroyed. I mean, how do we make those arguments with a straight face now given what president is doing?
REID: Yes. And to just put a quote on what you just said, I want to play the former president of the United States, Barack Obama, talking about what we’re seeing in this sort of circus atmosphere. Take a listen.
BARACK OBAMA [on CBS]: The president doesn’t like to lose and never admits loss. I’m more troubled by the fact that other Republican officials who clearly know better are going along with this, are humoring him in this fashion. It is one more step in delegitimizing not just the incoming Biden administration but democracy, generally.
REID: So that explains him, explains Trump. But I need to go back to Republicans for just a moment because both House and Senate Republicans have made it clear that when sort of the normal order resumes and Congress is back in session and at work, they’re not interested in doing any work that involves legislating or helping people during this awful pandemic. That’s not taken -- you know, COVID-19 has now taken down -- I don’t even know how many administration officials. We got Corey Lewandowski being the latest. You can go on and on and on, Mark Meadows, all of these officials even inside the Trump world have it. Trump had it, but what they want to focus on is investigating. They want to go after Hunter Biden still. They want to go after the investigations that led to impeachment, a time in which I think for a lot of people, you have a sort of become the modern day Thaddeus Stevens, you know, making your argument against Trump during impeachment. They want go after the Mueller probe again. Is this what we’re going to have to sit through for four next four year, Republicans just doing investigations and refusing to legislate?
SCHIFF: Well, we may. You know, certainly I think you’re absolutely right about the fact that this wouldn’t be going on right now. This obstruction of the transition wouldn’t be going on if Republicans weren’t allowing it to go on. Indeed, that’s been the story of the last four years. You wouldn’t have the breakdown of the independence of the Justice Department under Bill Barr if Republicans have stood up and defended that institution. You wouldn’t have anything to abuse of the pardon power. You wouldn’t have the stonewalling of subpoena. You wouldn’t have to play the violation of the Hatch Act holding convention on the White House ground. But for Republicans going along with it and they’re going along with it still, and it is just tearing down our democracy. I do expect in the new Congress that, yes, they’ll continue to try to go after Joe Biden, delegitimize Joe Biden. They won’t be interested in getting things done because they will feel particularly Kevin McCarthy in the House, that if we govern well, then it impedes their ability to change the majority in the House. We’re going to have to overcome that vote though, Joy, because the American people are counting on us. They need help right away. They can’t even wait until January. There are millions of businesses that maybe destroyed between now and January if they don’t get help. So I hope that if the Republicans adopt that kind of obstructionism, that they pay a heavy price for it at the polls, but I don’t want to see us sacrifice, you know, the American people during this pandemic for the political interest Republicans hope to gain by doing nothing.
REID: You did mention William Barr, who has become quite a prominent villain in this long seemingly endless saga. I feel like Trump has been President for about 40 years rather than four. Would you be open to replacing him? Your name has come when I’ve had conversations with folks who are politically inclined about who they like to see in a Biden administration. Would you be interested in becoming attorney general of the United States?
SCHIFF: Well, this will seem like a political answer, and I supposed it is. I think that the president-elect has got an extraordinarily talented bench to draw from for all of the positions in this cabinet. And I have every confidence he will make great choices. So I’m going to leave it with that. But, you know, I like that the choices he’s already made in his Chief of Staff, Ron Klain, is immensely talented and the people that I see there are considered for various positions give me a lot confidence. You know, Ron’s position in particular given experience dealing with a pandemic is absolutely vital right now. So I have a lot of confidence. I think the vice president is also saying and doing exactly the right things, reaching out to international partners, telling them he’s going to restore the terms of the Atlantic (ph) alignments, he’s committed to NATO and, you know, so very basic staples of American diplomacy. And he’s doing and saying the right things both domestically with COVID, internationally with our defense of democracy. REID: Well, sir, I will just say that those who watched the impeachment hearings and heard particularly your closing argument, I think, wouldn’t be mad at the idea of you taking that job. So you were very demure in not saying that you would or would not be interested. But thank you very much for everything you’ve done over the course of this year. Have a great evening.
SCHIFF: Thank you.
REID: Thank you, Congressman Adam Schiff. Thank you very much.
