During Thursday afternoon’s MSNBC Live, host Katy Tur interviewed two of the network’s favorite Republicans, Never Trumpers Elise Jordan and Steve Schmidt. Tur pointed out that Jordan and Schmidt are the hosts of a new podcast called “Words Matter.” Schmidt went on a tirade against the current Republican Party, which he called “the party of Trump,” going so far as to say that “it needs to burn to the ground.”
After making sure viewers were reminded of the scandal and criminal charges facing Republican Congressman Chris Collins, Tur pointed to the results of a poll from the Center for American Progress showing that “fifty-four percent of voters across 48 Republican-held congressional districts said Republicans are ‘more corrupt’ than Democrats compared with 46 percent who said Democrats are ‘more corrupt…’ An even higher number of independents hold Republicans responsible for corruption: 60 percent.”
Schmidt did not think that the poll numbers were lopsided enough, arguing that “that there would be close to an even split on the question of who is more corrupt, Republicans or Democrats, speaks to a staggering failure on the part of the Democratic Party and its leaders to prosecute a case against this lawless and corrupt administration because what this administration is doing is ripping off the American people.”
Tur used a colorful analogy in her effort to explain why the American public has not reacted more negatively to “a level of disgustingness and behavior that has not ever been seen in the modern era in this country.” She compared President Trump to “a man who has a stain on his shirt, like a hot dog, mustard stain on his shirt. And instead of changing his shirt because he’s got a stain on it, he gets ketchup on it and relish and hot sauce and grease and whatever else is there. So you end up just looking at the shirt and saying, ‘oh, that’s the way the shirt is supposed to look.’”
Jordan jumped in, agreeing with Tur’s analogy: “that’s a really dirty, nasty shirt. It needs to just be boiled and put in with a bunch of bleach and stripped and cleansed.”
After complaining about “baby internment camps” and declaring “the Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush” dead, Schmidt effectively issued a call-to-action for all of his fellow Never Trumpers:
For there to be any redemption of a right of center conservative party in the United States of America means the party of Trump must be destroyed politically. It’s like a fire. Fires are a part of the ecosystem; part of the natural progress. And when the forest burns, it purifies and there can be new growth. For there to be new growth of a conservative movement, of a right of center party, the one that I joined in 1988, that’s what needs to happen to the party of Trump. It needs to burn to the ground.
This segment on MSNBC Live should prove without a doubt that the media, aided by Never Trumpers, have decided to take an active role in the 2018 midterms and ensuring that the left prevails, all the while continuing to claim they're being objective.
A transcript of the relevant portion of MSNBC Live With Katy Tur is below. Click “expand” to read more.
MSNBC Live With Katy Tur
08/09/18
02:19 PM
KATY TUR: President Trump’s 2020 campaign slogan is promises made, promises kept. But there is one notable promise he has not kept and that’s draining the swamp. This week, we got multiple reminders of the many ethics problems plaguing the President’s allies. Yesterday it was the indictment of New York Republican Chris Collins on insider trading charges. He was the first member of Congress to back Trump in 2016. On Tuesday, Forbes focused on Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. The magazine reported allegations that Ross siphoned more than $120 million off of his business associates. That same day, Pro-Publica detailed how a handful of the President’s Mar-a-Lago associates are secretly shaping policy at the V.A despite having no background in the military or government. This is on top of the gaggle of former and current White House officials under fire for lavish spending because who could forget Scott Pruitt or Tom Price? Then there are those in Trump’s orbit who have been charged with lying to investigators; his former campaign chairman, his former Deputy Campaign Manager, his first National Security Advisor, his former Foreign Policy Advisor. As NBC’s first read puts it this morning, the party of Trump has a corruption problem. Will the voters care? Back with me, MSNBC Contributor Steve Schmidt and joining us is MSNBC Political Analyst Elise Jordan; both Steve and Elise are the hosts of the new podcast “Words Matter,” which debuted this week. Congratulations on the cast.
ELISE JORDAN: Thank you very much. And thank you for that wonderful intro.
TUR: Oh, of course. I can’t wait to listen to it. So I could have gone on with that intro. There were things we left out. And that’s what’s remarkable about this. There were a ton of things we left out. We could have gotten into the Trump D.C. Hotel. We could have got into the emoluments. And there’s so many other things. Elise, Steve touched on this a moment ago. But this level of corruption, what does it say about this administration and those Donald Trump surrounds himself with?
JORDAN: Well, it’s…Donald Trump’s main goal has always been to enrich himself. And it’s always about Donald Trump. It’s about his personal self interests not necessarily the national interest, which the most disturbing trend is in our foreign policy where we aren’t necessarily sure if the decisions being made, say to cozy up to Saudi Arabia, is anything to do with the dealings of say Jared Kushner and his family. So by being so blatant about their own personal interests, it enables everyone else in the Trump administration to follow the lead and the tone that’s set from the top. And we’ve seen it from the private planes to the stock trading by a member of Congress who is one of Trump’s earliest supporters to now the V.A., to members of President Trump’s personal club who are overseeing the second largest bureaucracy in the U.S. Government.
TUR: Steve, there is a poll taken by the Progressive Center for American Progress Action Fund that the corruption message is gaining traction against the GOP. “Fifty-four percent of voters across 48 Republican-held congressional districts said Republicans are ‘more corrupt’ than Democrats compared with 46 percent who said Democrats are ‘more corrupt…’ An even higher number of independents hold Republicans responsible for corruption: 60 percent.” Seems like this…sounds like another election that we went through, I don’t know, in 2006 or going back to the ‘90s?
STEVE SCHMIDT: Small potatoes corruption. If you go back to 2006, when you look what’s going on in Washington, D.C. today, the culture around the lobbying community, I mean, Jake Abramoff looks like a piper compared to these people. I mean, this is full on Banana Republic stuff. This doesn’t happen in healthy liberal democracies. It’s just utterly lawless. The greed, the corruption and I think when I look at those numbers, and that there would be close to an even split on the question of who is more corrupt, Republicans or Democrats, speaks to a staggering failure on the part of the Democratic Party and its leaders to prosecute a case against this lawless and corrupt administration because what this administration is doing is ripping off the American people, and it’s not penny ante ripping off. It’s wholesale stealing; wholesale corruption. It is a level of disgustingness and behavior that has not ever been seen in the modern era in this country.
TUR: Could it just be hard for Democrats to find one thing to target? Or have they been targeting so many things that the message just gets lost? I use this analogy. And it’s not perfect, but I really like it. Donald Trump is a man who has a stain on his shirt, like a hot dog, mustard stain on his shirt. And instead of changing his shirt because he’s got a stain on it, he gets ketchup on it and relish and hot sauce and grease and whatever else is there. So you end up just looking at the shirt and saying, “oh, that’s the way the shirt is supposed to look.”
JORDAN: That’s a really dirty, nasty shirt. It needs to just be boiled and put in with a bunch of bleach and stripped and cleansed. That’s what I t hink. And I think that’s what the Democrats’ message should be that this morass of corruption is intolerable and that’s what they should be campaigning on. They shouldn’t be talking about treason. They should be talking about how taxpayers are funding the personal enrichment of Donald Trump and his family and of his cabinet.
SCHMIDT: And they should put a plan forward to clean it up.
TUR: If Donald Trump is not in office, if he is voted out of office, are you going to rejoin the Republican Party? Are you going to feel better about the Republican Party?
JORDAN: Not if they are putting money towards…to child molesters in Alabama like they did last year. Not if they are funding candidates that have credible allegations of sexual assault. Not if they are, you know, the head of the RNC finance has also been accused by many, Steve Wynn, before he resigned. Unless they clean house, too, I don’t see myself going lock step and barrel behind the Republican Party again because it’s just wrong.
SCHMIDT: And that’s not to mention the baby internment camps, the indecency, the cruelty, the meanness, the lying, the complicit nature of this Republican majority with an attack on the country that’s launched by the Russian Federation so the Republican Party of Teddy Roosevelt and John McCain and Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush is dead. It’s over. It doesn’t exist anymore. It has been taken over lock, stock, and barrel. For there to be any redemption of a right of center conservative party in the United States of America means the party of Trump must be destroyed politically. It’s like a fire. Fires are part of the ecosystem; part of the natural progress. And when the forest burns, it’s purified and there can be new growth. For there to be new growth of a conservative movement, of a right of center party, the one that I joined in 1988, that’s what needs to happen to the party of Trump. It needs to burn to the ground.
TUR: Like a phoenix from the ashes.
JORDAN: And this is what we are going to be talking about on our podcast, Katy, about how we do that, about how we wrest away the ideals of personal liberty and individual responsibility and a strong defense without ballooning the national deficit. That’s what we’re going to be…
TUR: Do I download on iTunes?
JORDAN: Yes.
TUR: I will do that. “Words Matter.” Elise and Steve, guys, thank you so much, you guys. Great to see you in person. Always good to see you too, Elise.
