Following Thursday’s final presidential debate, NBC’s Kristen Welker received widespread praise for her performance as moderator. However, it wasn’t good enough for her colleague Mika Brzezinski at MSNBC, who thought Welker didn’t hammer President Trump aggressively enough.
On Morning Joe Friday, speaking to The Washington Post’s Eugene Robinson, Brzezinski complained:
And I'm sorry, the one thing I would've asked whether I was Joe Biden or Kristen Welker was sort of an extension of the column that you wrote this week, and it goes beyond why isn't he trying to make, you know, people better? Why isn't he trying to fight the coronavirus? Does he want people to die? Does he want people to die of the coronavirus? I ask in all seriousness, and I’ll send it to you, because he's not pushing for universal mask wearing.
Wow. Brzezinski wanted Welker, “in all seriousness”, to ask the President of the United States whether he wanted people to die from the Chinese virus? No wonder NBC didn’t select her to moderate the debate. Although several unhinged moderators in the past have taken debates as opportunities to directly battle Trump, Welker did not. But Brzezinski demonstrated that she would have gone flying off the handle, had she been given the role:
Undermining his scientists, saying that Dr. Fauci is a disaster. Not following the guidelines and holding super spreader events at the White House! This is crazy town! And if anybody has a hard time handling Donald Trump, it's because he's flying around with lies and conspiracy theories and childish antics on stage while tens of thousands of American people are set to die because of him.
If the goal of moderating a debate were to ask the candidates nonstarter questions at high volume and scream recycled Morning Joe talking points at them, Mika Brzezinski would have been picked as moderator without a doubt, perhaps as co-moderator next to husband Joe Scarborough. Resentful of the fact that Trump is still actively campaigning, she whined: “Super spreader events. This president is going around the country and spreading the virus."
Acting as though the Trump administration has and will do nothing to combat COVID-19, which was completely unknown to scientists less than a year ago, the pessimistic co-host sneered: “This is where we are. Hundreds of thousands of people will continue to die from the coronavirus in part because this president will not promote the basics that could save these lives.”
This attack on Welker's journalistic integrity was sponsored by Priceline and the Ninja Foodi. Click on the links and tell them what you think.
Read the transcript below:
MSNBC's Morning Joe
10/23/20
7:45:47 AMMIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, Gene Robinson, these numbers, the daily numbers, the daily death toll, a thousand a day. I mean, the stories go on and on and on. And you can shout it from the rooftops. This president did not have plan. He missed it from the get-go. He spoke behind the American people's backs to Bob Woodward and said it was deadly, it was airborne, it was going to kill a lot of people. And he didn't tell the American people the truth. He didn't mobilize the Defense Production Act. He didn't get a mass mobilization of masks, of testing. He did nothing. And I'm sorry, the one thing I woulda asked whether I was Joe Biden or Kristen Welker was sort of an extension of the column that you wrote this week, and it goes beyond why isn't he trying to make, you know, people better? Why isn't he trying to fight the coronavirus? Does he want people to die? Does he want people to die of the coronavirus? I ask in all seriousness, and I’ll send it to you, because he's not pushing for universal mask wearing. He refuses to say it. ‘I'm for masks. Sure, people can wear masks.’ No, as president, you're the example. You're the leader who can send the most powerful message to the American people and to the world and he won't do it. He refuses. And it goes down the line on every level. Undermining his scientists, saying that Dr. Fauci is a disaster. Not following the guidelines and holding super spreader events at the White House! This is crazy town! And if anybody has a hard time handling Donald Trump, it's because he's flying around with lies and conspiracy theories and childish antics on stage while tens of thousands of American people are set to die because of him. That's the bottom line. Gene Robinson, fact check me.
EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, Mi[ka], your facts are absolutely right.
(…)
7:54:44 AM
BRZEZINSKI: Well, and another couple hundred thousand people don't have to die. That doesn't have to happen. If this president actually did the basics here. We're not even talking about hard stuff where you have to think really hard and complicated and navigate congress. No, basics. Masks. Promoting Socia-- Hey, how about not traveling the country and holding super spreader events so people pass the virus along to each other and die from it. When's the next one? I think it's in New Hampshire on Sunday. Super spreader events. This president is going around the country and spreading the virus. It is crazy. And yes, it is hard to be shocked every single day, but you know what? This is where we are. Hundreds of thousands of people will continue to die from the coronavirus in part because this president will not promote the basics that could save these lives. Donny Deutsch, Claire McCaskill, Eugene Robinson and James Bindel thank you all.
