Thursday night’s ReidOut was plenty crazy with dangerous and venomous rhetoric, but the MSNBC show went up a notch when host Joy Reid fawned over President Biden as not only akin to George Washington for his widespread coronavirus vaccine mandates, but she also said he showed leadership on par with Ulysses S. Grant in fighting the 80 million unvaccinated (which would presumably mean they’re akin to Confederate soldiers).
And after welcoming back faux Republican-turned-progressive Steve Schmidt, the Lincoln Project co-founder ironically said it’s the GOP who are responsible for the “death of America’s children” from Covid and that the unvaccinated need to be removed from society unless they accept mandates are “as American as apple pie.”
Reid’s Washington comparison came first after The Nation correspondent Elie “Mad Scientist Fat Albert” Mystal brushed aside mandate concerns because it’s not like the government will be “coming into your house and jabbing you with medicine.”
Rather, Mystal said, it’s “the federal government [is] requiring you to take a vaccine in order to participate in the society” and is completely legal whereas “making people sick is not.”
Reid took that train of thought and ran with it, saying it “goes back to George Washington who’s the first to require vaccinations, I believe for smallpox.”
So Biden talking about needing to “protected the vaccinated...from [the] unvaccinated” is just like Washington with the smallpox vaccine during the Revolutionary War?
Fast-forward to the D-block and, after talking about President Trump’s support for Confederate General Robert E. Lee, Reid invoked Grant’s chief opponent on the Union side and 18th President of the United States as someone Biden has emulated with his speech going to war against tens of million of fellow Americans.
I've gotta ask you about someone else who, like I would say Ulysses S. Grant — who should have more statues — was decisive today: President Biden. There is a lot of caterwauling going on among Republican governors. We’ll put up the list. 17 so far and counting starting with Greg Abbott who had a weird comment about choice and ending with Tennessee's Bill Lee. We’ll just put that up. They're quite upset with this mandate.
So what was this, Joy? Biden's Battle of the Wilderness? Or was it his Vicksburg?
Reid then cited the vaccinated people she knows in her life as proof that “most” vaccinated Americans “are irritated and — and really impatient, at this point, with those who are refusing, for whatever reason, to do this easy thing.”
Invited to sound off on her claim this is a winning argument for Biden, Schmidt declared that “the majority in this country is enraged over this, about being held hostage by an extremist, intransigent, junk science-believing minority that is endangering America's children.”
The co-founder of a group that coddled a child predator predicted that “[w]e’re in the opening months of what will be the children's phase of this pandemic and we will see death of America's children.”
Schmidt went on, saying Republican governors are “anything but pro-life,” the unvaccinated need to lose their freedom of movement, airlines need to mandate vaccines or be sued, people need to be forcefully jabbed “with an iron fist,” and lack of freedoms is quite American (click “expand”):
And these GOP governors are showing they're anything but pro-life when it comes to children with their cavalier disregard for the lives of America's children. And the immunocompromised. And our most vulnerable populations. And so here's the deal as we move into the second year or third year. Someone's going to lose out. Someone's going to have to stay home. And let it be the people who would rather take horse dewormer than a safe, viable, effective vaccine that's saving lives. Someone's world is going to get smaller. I don't want it to be mine, and I don't want it to be my kids. So you have a lot of rights in America. I am completely opposed to the government mandating that you must in the private sector as a private citizen take a vaccine. But you don't have a right to fly on American Airlines or Delta Airlines. Congress should pass laws that make it easier to file class action lawsuits against companies that won't make the right decisions to protect their consumers, that pack them in into canisters at 35,000 feet in the air, for example. The incentives that government can bring and including the imposition of appropriate mandates using the full lawful authority of the United States government.
And I think it's important to understand that — that imposing mandates around — around vaccines and quarantines, around diseases is as American as apple pie and has gone on since the beginning of the country. We live in an age of misinformation and an age of insanity, and enough is enough is enough. Reality is reality, and it's time to end the B.S. and so I think that he should approach this with an iron fist and I think that the overwhelming majority of the country is going to be deeply appreciative of somebody standing up at long last and saying to the small minority of nuts in this country, enough.
Reid comparing Biden to two famous presidents and gushing over his venom for 80 million Americans was made possible thanks to the endorsement of advertisers such as Allegra, Discover, Farmers Insurance, and Liberty Mutual. Follow the links to see their contact information at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from September 9, click here.
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
September 9, 2021
7:11 p.m. EasternELIE MYSTAL: When you are trying to — and remember, when we're talking about mandates, we're not talking about the federal government coming into your house and jabbing you with medicine. That — that would be a violation of your 14th and Fourth amendment rights. We're talking about the federal government requiring you to take a vaccine in order to participate in the society. That is legal.
REID: Yeah.
MYSTAL: Making people sick is not. I don't know any other way to say that.
REID: And it goes — and it goes back to George Washington who’s the first to require vaccinations, I believe for smallpox.
(....)7:49 p.m. Eastern
REID: I've gotta ask you about someone else who, like I would say Ulysses S. Grant — who should have more statues — was decisive today: President Biden. There is a lot of caterwauling going on among Republican governors. We’ll put up the list. 17 so far and counting starting with Greg Abbott who had a weird comment about choice and ending with Tennessee's Bill Lee. We’ll just put that up. They're quite upset with this mandate. But I gotta tell you, Steve, I don't know if you agree with me on this, but I feel like the majority of Americans are vaccinated already, right? We're talking about six, seven in 10. In some states, it's 70 percent. And most of the people I know who are vaccinated are irritated and — and really impatient, at this point, with those who are refusing, for whatever reason, to do this easy thing and save us from this nightmare pandemic. Do you agree with the sort of Dave Wasserman's of the world that Biden now being real decisive and coming down strong on the side of the vaccinated is actually good politics for him and — for him and bad politics for Republicans?
STEVE SCHMIDT: You used the word “irritated,” which is evidence of your magnanimity. I think the majority in this country is enraged over this, about being held hostage by an extremist, intransigent, junk science-believing minority that is endangering America's children. We're in the opening months of what will be the children's phase of this pandemic and we will see death of America's children and I think there is a lot to be said about how a society treats its children, its most vulnerable citizens. And these GOP governors are showing they're anything but pro-life when it comes to children with their cavalier disregard for the lives of America's children. And the immunocompromised. And our most vulnerable populations. And so here's the deal as we move into the second year or third year. Someone's going to lose out. Someone's going to have to stay home. And let it be the people who would rather take horse dewormer than a safe, viable, effective vaccine that's saving lives. Someone's world is going to get smaller. I don't want it to be mine, and I don't want it to be my kids. So you have a lot of rights in America. I am completely opposed to the government mandating that you must in the private sector as a private citizen take a vaccine. But you don't have a right to fly on American Airlines or Delta Airlines. Congress should pass laws that make it easier to file class action lawsuits against companies that won't make the right decisions to protect their consumers, that pack them in into canisters at 35,000 feet in the air, for example. The incentives that government can bring and including the imposition of appropriate mandates using the full lawful authority of the United States government. And I think it's important to understand that — that imposing mandates around — around vaccines and quarantines, around diseases is as American as apple pie and has gone on since the beginning of the country.
REID: Yep.
SCHMIDT: We live in an age of misinformation and an age of insanity, and enough is enough is enough.
REID: That’s right.
REID: Reality is reality, and it's time to end the B.S. and so I think that he should approach this with an iron fist and I think that the overwhelming majority of the country is going to be deeply appreciative of somebody standing up at long last and saying to the small minority of nuts in this country, enough.
REID: Yeah. I think — I 100 percent agree. I think that's how most people are going to feel.
