Joy Reid vouching for the veracity of a Donald Trump attack ad? Yup, it actually happened today!
Reid seems supremely skeptical that socialist Bernie Sanders can beat President Trump. On her MSNBC show today, Reid told Sanders's campaign manager Faiz Shakir that the ads the Trump campaign would run against Sanders should he be the nominee would be "true" and "actual." She specifically mentioned video of Bernie praising Castro and "Russia" [sic, presumably meant the Soviet Union.]
Reid acknowledged that in his recent passionate condemnation of socialism, MSNBC's Chris Matthews "represents a lot of voters."
Reid also said that swing states like Florida would be off the table for Sanders, because "there are just some people who for whatever reason, whether they're right or wrong, are just not going to vote for a socialist. Period."
Is Reid being sincere, or is she simply knocking Bernie down to clear the path for a female candidate like Warren or Klobuchar? Has Reid perhaps heard from Barack Obama, who reportedly said "that he would try to stop Sanders if he were poised to clinch the nomination?" Probably all those factors are behind Reid's rap on Sanders. Be that as it may, to hear Joy Reid say that prospective Trump attack ads will be "true" was, to quote our late, great Noel Sheppard, delicious.
Note: here's the kind of opposition-research gold that Reid was talking about: a video of Sanders praising Fidel Castro and communist Cuba, and an article describing Sanders's positive statements about the Soviet Union.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
AM Joy
2/9/20
10:38 am ETJOY REID: When you talk to people over 30, maybe even over 40 even more so, they hear socialism, or democratic socialism. They don't even hear the democratic part. They just hear socialism. You saw the Chris Matthews moment the other night where he talked — he represents a lot of voters who, they hear that word and they say, absolutely not.
FAIZ SHAKIR: Yes.
REID: Is the campaign prepared with a message to counter, when the Trump team, if he gets the nomination, and then the Trump then the Trump team shows video of him praising Fidel Castro and the Trump team starts playing video of him praising Russia’s [sic, Soviet Union's] social services . . . The ads are going to be, the ads are going to be true. They're going to be actual [video of Sanders.]
. . .
What the job of the Democratic nominee is going to be is to keep the 65 million people who voted for Hillary Clinton, add another 100,000 people in the key states. But in order — that’s all you’ve got to do.
SHAKIR: Unite the party, and grow the party.
REID: Let’s talk about those things. Number one, if the ideas that you guys are going to run on is an affirmative defense of socialism, Florida's off the table. She [Hillary] didn't Florida. But you're not going to get Florida. You’re going have to win it with a smaller map. I'm just telling that there are voters —
SHAKIR: We’re not going to write anything off.
REID: But you’re not going to keep all 65 million people. There are just some people who, for whatever reason, whether they're right or wrong, are not going to vote for a socialist. Period.
