Often inaccurate MSNBC host Katy Tur had the knives out from the get-go during Monday’s MTP Daily. From the opening intro, she was looking to get a piece of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, even going so far as to question why the former Marine Corp general continued to be employed by the White House. Tur and the MSNBC panel essentially were calling for the Gold Star father to be fired.
Tur began the program by continuing the liberal media’s obsession with Bob Woodward’s gossip book. “[D]on't let the noise drown out the fact that the op-ed and the things reported by Woodward are extraordinary,” she opined. “And they raise the serious question of who is really in charge of the executive branch?”
Tur made her insistence on Kelly’s ouster very apparent:
In a normal West Wing, that would be the chief of staff. In a normal West Wing, the chief of staff wouldn't allow staffers to steal things off the resolute desk in the Oval Office. In a normal West Wing, the chief of staff wouldn't let staffers record their firings inside the situation room. And in a normal West Wing, if any of nose abnormal things happened, the chief of staff would be the fall guy. So our question today, and one posed by Chuck yesterday to Kellyanne Conway on Meet the Press is, why does John Kelly still have a job?
After being asked by Tur point blank, “why does John Kelly still have a job”, Washington Post national correspondent Philip Bump surmised that it was because President Trump had no standards and was fine with Kelly’s sloppiness. “The real answer is because this is not a normal White House, because Donald Trump does not have normal expectations of his chief of staff that one would expect from a president,” he argued.
Tur then turned to former Hillary Clinton campaign adviser Zerlina Maxwell to answer whether anyone in the White House “bears any responsibility for anything”. According to Maxwell’s eye-roll inducing analysis, the White House was akin to a daycare center full of children with no one teaching them a lesson in responsibility:
I mean, Parents have to deal with this all the time, when their kids act out, parents have to take responsibility and teach their children -- it's horrible that we're using the analogy of parents and children when we're talking about the president, but it's applicable. The parents take some responsibility in teaching and rearing their children in the right way.
“Similarly, the chief of staff in this particular case, John Kelly, does have a responsibility to ensure that things like pulling papers off the President's desks and other forms of chaos that have been reported in this book are not happening,” Maxwell continued.
Next up was supposed GOP strategist Susan Del Percio, who contended that “John Kelly is trying to do the best he can under the circumstances provided.” But since he was not acting like a “traditional chief of staff,” she found it “extremely problematic”.
This demand for Kelly’s firing comes after the liberal media spent nearly a year predicting Kelly’s imminent resignation but to no avail. Looks like they want him out of there one way or another.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC
MTP Daily
September 10, 2018
5:02:40 p.m. Eastern(…)
KATY TUR: But, guys, while the gossip, the backstabbing, the threats of firing leakers and investigating news organizations is nothing new in this West Wing, don't let the noise drown out the fact that the op-ed and the things reported by Woodward are extraordinary. And they raise the serious question of who is really in charge of the executive branch?
In a normal West Wing, that would be the chief of staff. In a normal West Wing, the chief of staff wouldn't allow staffers to steal things off the resolute desk in the Oval Office. In a normal West Wing, the chief of staff wouldn't let staffers record their firings inside the situation room. And in a normal West Wing, if any of nose abnormal things happened, the chief of staff would be the fall guy. So our question today, and one posed by Chuck yesterday to Kellyanne Conway on Meet the Press is, why does John Kelly still have a job?
(…)
TUR: So, Phil, you. Why does John Kelly still have a job?
PHILIP BUMP: I mean, you could have asked that question for any number of things over the course of the past year and a half or so, right? The real answer is because this is not a normal White House, because Donald Trump does not have normal expectations of his chief of staff that one would expect from a president. He has, at times, said that he likes to be the chief of staff himself. John Kelly, apparently, was brought in early on and tried to take a traditional chief of staff role. That was abandoned at some point, over the course of the past year or so, according to reporting. And I think that's the easiest answer.
TUR: But does that mean that no one in the White House bears any responsibility for anything, because the President is just abnormal and he doesn't listen, so that means everybody else, something goes wrong, not my fault?
ZERLINA MAXWELL: No, that's not how it works. I mean, Parents have to deal with this all the time, when their kids act out, parents have to take responsibility and teach their children -- it's horrible that we're using the analogy of parents and children when we're talking about the president, but it's applicable. The parents take some responsibility in teaching and rearing their children in the right way.
Similarly, the chief of staff in this particular case, John Kelly, does have a responsibility to ensure that things like pulling papers off the President's desks and other forms of chaos that have been reported in this book are not happening. But I also think that the President -- you know, if he wanted to fire John Kelly, he would. He would probably do it via tweet.
(…)
SUSAN DEL PERCIO: John Kelly is trying to do the best he can under the circumstances provided. Is he doing the traditional chief of staff job? No. And is it problematic? Yes, it's extremely problematic. Like Bob Woodward said, today on the Today show, we should all be very concerned with what's happening. Is it normal to take a piece of paper off the president's desk? No. But this president also has no idea how to govern. Two years in, he has shown no interest in learning how to govern. He cares about one thing: His ratings, and how he is -- and how he's perceived. That's it.
(…)
