Monday’s Morning Joe opened with fill-in host Jonathan Lemire and his panel weighing in on the controversy surrounding Republican amendments to the National Defense Authorization Act. They argued that the military should pay for travel expenses for women in the military looking to travel out of state to circumvent state laws prohibiting abortion.
Lemire discussed clips shown in prior segments of Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Representative Michael McCaul (R-TX) defending the legislation, labeling them as “callous,” while Al Sharpton derided Senator Cotton’s term “abortion tourism.”
A visibly upset Lemire questioned Sharpton:
Rev, in the clips we just played, it's impossible not to be struck by the callousness of the two Republican lawmakers while talking about this. Senator Cotton used the phrase, ‘abortion tourism.’ Give us your sense of, as to just, how he is portraying an issue that is so difficult and so central to so many women put in this situation, where now, I mean, they're being political pawns.
Sharpton responded back,
To really minimize the impact of a woman's decision to have or not have an abortion, to try and act like this is some excursion, like you're going on a vacation spot or something shows the callousness -- you used the right word -- of the right-wing in these particular arguments. This is not tourism. This is basic decisions that take a lot of real gut-wrenching decisions to make. And then to try and use the fact that this country needs to have its defense at all times on alert. I mean, we have battles going on all over the world. Ukraine, et cetera. And we're going to play these culture wars in the middle of a time that recruitment is down? It shows you that they have no boundaries to try and unmoralizing.
Lemire held nothing back in calling Republicans’ efforts “callousness.” However, the Republican additions to the bill did not prohibit the murder of babies, they only would reinstate past policies in the military, where political issues like abortion were kept out.
His characterization of women who want to have abortions as “political pawns” was also false. In a country where some states legally prohibit abortion and others legally protect it, the federal government and the supposedly apolitical military shouldn’t be siding with one group of states over another, and paying for people to circumvent state laws.
If there was a national consensus that abortion should be protected, this could be seen as nonpartisan, but without one, funding abortion like this should be seen as purely partisan and political.
President Emeritus of the Council on Foreign Relations Richard Haass chimed in, trying to frame Republicans as jeopardizing national security. He brought up the recruitment issues the U.S. military was facing, and that the military needs funding. While he was absolutely correct that the bill did need to be passed, and the military must be funded, the idea that Republicans trying to remove far-left ideology from the military caused any of that was absurd.
He concluded that the whole issue was “a sign of just how much things have deteriorated.” This was a rather wise comment from him, as the fact Democrats could begin to turn the military into an abortion payout machine and diversity indoctrination center and then accuse Republicans of politicizing the military proves things in fact, have drastically deteriorated.
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The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
07/17/23
6:09 AM ET
(…)
JONATHAN LEMIRE: Rev, in the clips we just played, it's impossible not to be struck by the callousness of the two Republican lawmakers while talking about this. Senator Cotton used the phrase, “abortion tourism”. Give us your sense of, as to just, how he is portraying an issue that is so difficult and so central to so many women put in this situation, where now, I mean, they're being political pawns.
AL SHARPTON: To really minimize the impact of a woman's decision to have or not have an abortion, to try and act like this is some excursion, like you're going on a vacation spot or something shows the callousness -- you used the right word -- of the right wing in these particular arguments. This is not tourism. This is basic decisions that take a lot of real gut-wrenching decisions to make.
And then to try and use the fact that this country needs to have its defense at all times on alert. I mean, we have battles going on all over the world. Ukraine, et cetera. And we're going to play these culture wars in the middle of a time that recruitment is down? It shows you that they have no boundaries to try and unmoralizing.
And Susan, I think that you from your perch watching all of this, I mean, there's really no place I can remember in recent history where we've seen this kind of moral majority from the older days, even try to interfere with military strength and military recruitment, to try to make an argument that ought to be made in the public square or in churches.
SUSAN PAGE: Yeah. And let's think about what the political consequences will be for some of these Republican members in districts that are either swing districts or districts that Joe Biden won, who have now cast out votes in favor of this hardline position on abortion for women in the military.
And I wonder, Richard Haass, you know, we talk about the political consequences, which are considerable, we know. What are the actual national -- are there national security repercussions if there is a failure to pass this defense authorization bill, which I think is possible when we look at the showdown coming up?
RICHARD HAASS: Well I think there’s national security consequences, Susan, almost whatever happens, one is – and the Rev was getting at a little bit. One of the biggest problems facing the military right now is retention and recruitment. And women play now an increasingly central role in the American military. Things have really, really changed. I'm not sure these lawmakers may understand that. So to weigh in on these issues in the way they're doing really undermines readiness. That's point one. If this bill weren't to be passed because of this, yes, I mean, it would -- we've already got a time now where the U.S. Military can't do the procurement it needs to, again is having personnel issues.
If suddenly funds aren't available at this moment, and the United States, even though we're not a direct participant in Ukraine or, shall we say, a major indirect participant there, plus we’ve got operations in every other theater of the world, it would be a major, major problem. It makes it impossible to plan, it makes it that much more difficult.
Let me just make one political statement. You know everyone around this table has been doing these issues for a long time. We’ve come a long way since politics stopped at the water’s edge. The idea that this becomes another football for American politics, I just think, is a sign of how much things have deteriorated.
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