Shades of a football coach explaining away his team's loss by blaming the refs.
Rather than focusing on Kamala Harris's evasive performance in her Fox News interview, today's Morning Joe trained its fire on Bret Baier.
Mika led the hit parade, branding Bret's performance an "embarrassing, bad-faith effort by a once-respected host." She also claimed that Baier is "a man who spent his life as a down-the-middle journalist, seeming to throw it all away for his audience of one [i.e., Trump.]"
Mika also mysteriously claimed that Baier intentionally lured Harris into speaking over him. Really? I'm sure Bret would have preferred to get straight answers to his questions, rather than Kamala's filibustering.
Then there was Donny Deutsch, who said he was "repulsed" by Baier.
And finally, MSNBC commentator and uber-elitist Anand Giridharadas, the Sidwell Friends alum and former consultant at McKinsey, where his father had been a director.
Giridharadas praised Mika for accusing Trump of "fascism," and criticized the media for not using the word more often against Trump. Hilarious to make such an accusation on Morning Joe of all places, a show that has made a cottage industry out of accusing Trump of fascism, with this being just one of countless examples.
And, inevitably, Giridharadas also accused Baier of racism and misogyny, saying that as a member of the "old guard," he interrupted Kamala because he couldn't bear to hear a minority woman speak. "It just felt like a metaphor for a minority in this country that is angry at the notion that a rising, pluralist, more pluralist new America is speaking, is around, is here. And a desire to interrupt not just a person but the future."
Baier did a fine job. But on more than one occasion, Kamala evaded answering whether she still supported very controversial positions she has taken by saying that she will "follow the law." Here's an example of her using that phrase to dodge whether she still supports taxpayer-funded sex change operations for inmates.
I wish Bret had followed up along these lines: "Good to hear that you will not violate the law. But if elected, would you use your powers as President to change the law?"
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
10/17/24
6:02 am EDTWILLIE GEIST: I think, first of all, Donald Trump successfully worked the refs. He said in the days leading up to this that Fox News had gotten weak and soft. He called Bret Baier soft. Bret Baier conducted that interview as if he had something to prove to the former President of the United States.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Yeah . . . It was supposed to give viewers an opportunity to actually hear her plans as president. Instead, as you saw, it almost immediately devolved into an embarrassing, bad-faith effort by a once-respected host to play to an audience of one.
. . .
When Kamala Harris realized the host was not going to let her speak, the only way the Vice President could give Fox viewers an opportunity to hear what she had to say was to talk back over him. Was he making sure that happened? I personally think, absolutely.
. . .
We witnessed a man who spent his life as a down-the-middle journalist, seeming to throw it all away for his audience of one, interrupting the vice president awkwardly and unnecessarily.
. . .
DONNY DEUTSCH: I was quite repulsed by Bret Baier. I'd always liked him, always thought he was a straight shooter. And the attack mode from the beginning was quite stunning.
ANAND GIRIDHARADAS: I loved, Mika, that you used the word fascism. The other f-word, the f-word of this moment. Because, I think many of us in the media, particularly a lot of the newspapers, have been very, very reluctant to say what is clear, right?
MIKA: Yes.
GIRIDHARADAS: A tree is a tree. A river is a river. And fascism is fascism. It is a word with a dictionary definition. And if a tree is a tree. Fascism is And this, offered by, what is offered by Donald Trump and the Republican party today, is fascism. And we in the media need to say it.
And the other thing that Mika brought up, which I wanted to, you know, expand on for a second, is this notion of interruption, right? It was, it was, it was just a tick in that interview. But it was almost interruptionism last night.
I was watching last night. This is interruption as an art form. Interruption -- and it felt like interruption as a metaphor for a rising, new America, a new generation of leadership, a woman, a person of color in Kamala Harris, trying to speak. And this kind of figure of the old guard, who was offended at the notion that her voice had a volume, right? That her vocal cords made sound. Invited her on the show, and then was very, very angry that he could hear her.
And it just felt like a metaphor for a minority in this country that is angry at the notion that a rising, pluralist, more pluralist new America is speaking, is around, is here. And a desire to interrupt not just a person but the future.
