During Sunday’s edition of MSNBC Live With Yasmin Vossoughian, the panel had few kind words about Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court. Guest Danielle Moodie-Mills remarked on guest host Richard Lui’s comment that President Trump had a very good week, saying “it’s just funny to me that a good week for Donald Trump is a horrible week for our democracy and the American public.”
Mills added that “if this President is proud of a stolen seat and proud of now two sexual predators being on the Supreme Court, that is not a legacy that I would want” before expressing her desire for a “blue tsunami.”
After panelist Zerlina Maxwell complained about the “anti-woman” agenda of the Trump administration, panelist Elie Mystal took the rhetoric a step further, effectively comparing President Trump to the devil: “The thing about making a deal with the devil is that the devil backs up his bargain...The devil does not welch.”
After issuing a call to action for Democratic voters, Mystal wondered if “this reign that they now have control over all three branches of government, we’re going to see if this reign lasts for 30 days or two years or a thousand-year reich.”
The discussion concluded with Moodie-Mills rejecting Lui’s premise that the issue of the Supreme Court “doesn’t have the same resonance” with Democrats as it does for Republicans in terms of energizing their respective bases. According to Moodie-Mills, “I’m not 100 percent sure about that because I will tell you right now what is driving women, what is driving the outrage that Zerlina is talking about, is Roe v. Wade.” She went on to express concern that “if I come forward as a sexual assault survivor, and my case and I hold my…I want to hold my person accountable and that case gets to the Supreme Court, guess what? I’m sitting in front of these two justices that have been accused of sexual assault.”
Moodie-Mills’ comment contains one glaring historical inaccuracy, as Clarence Thomas, one of the two justices she described as having “been accused of sexual assault,” was never actually accused of sexual assault. It was allegations of sexual harassment, not sexual assault, that almost derailed his nomination to the Supreme Court.
The media apparently sees no distinction between the two; CNN’s Kaitlan Collins also falsely reported that Thomas faced allegations of sexual assault while reporting from Kavanaugh’s swearing-in ceremony Monday night.
A transcript of the relevant portion of MSNBC Live With Yasmin Vossoughian is below. Click “expand” to read more.
MSNBC Live With Yasmin Vossoughian
10/07/18
04:02 PM
RICHARD LUI: All right, let’s bring in Danielle Moodie-Mills, host of the Sirius XM’s Woke AF talk show. Noah Rothman, MSNBC Contributor and Associate Editor of Commentary Magazine, Zerlina Maxwell, MSNBC Political Analyst, Director of Progressive Programming for Sirius XM and former Director of Progressive Media for the Clinton Campaign plus Elie Mystal, abovethelaw.com editor. All friends of this hour, certainly, and the network. Let’s start with you, Danielle. Pulling off for a moment partisan politics. This, some are saying, has been a good week for Donald Trump. This as he gets in his second, his second justice plus a lot of other stuff which we’ll get to shortly. What’s your thought?
DANIELLE MOODIE-MILLS: Well, it’s just funny to me that a good week for Donald Trump is a horrible week for our democracy and for the American public. The reality is he has called the vocalized anger and rage that we’ve seen in front of the Supreme Court, we’ve seen on city streets across the country, he’s called them paid mobs. Him and the entire Republican Party have decided that we no longer have a voice and regardless they’re going to ram through their agenda and I tell people every single day, the midterm elections, this is the most consequential moment in our history. This is about saving our democracy at this point. If this President is proud of a stolen seat and proud of now two sexual predators being on the Supreme Court, that is not a legacy that I would want. And so I hope that in 30 days we will see the blue, not a wave, but a tsunami coming for the Republican Party.
LUI: You know, Noah, comment on that, those who would say it’s a good week for him because of all that has happened with the Supreme Court. We also had some good numbers when it comes to the economy and the jobs report. But on the flip side, you are seeing this, this opposite view which has not gone without confirmation, not without validation. This is a poll I want to show from NPR/PBS Newshour/Marist showing that the GOP during this very period has seen a jump if you look at the question of November elections and how important it is. Democrats already high back in October. 82 going down to…let me start the other way. July, 78 then going to 82. Republicans starting lower at 68 and then going up to 80. That’s a 12 percentage point jump for Republicans. Again, the Democrats already were high in July compared to October. Is this going to, and of course this has been the discussion all day, how long will this be sticking?
NOAH ROTHMAN: Right. I’m skeptical that this can…they can maintain this kind of enthusiasm for the next 30 days. There are about 800 news cycles in between now and the election and this one is over. This justice has been confirmed. So whatever sentiment that was yielding this kind of unity and enthusiasm among Republicans will wane. But at the same time, you do have to say that this has been a very good week for Donald Trump insofar as Republicans who were skeptical towards him, who have been hostile towards him.
LUI: Or not energized, as the numbers were showing there earlier on.
ROTHMAN: With rare exceptions, have been energized. When Democrats have been performing well at the polls in off year elections and special elections over the last two years, it has been because Republicans didn’t show up. Traditional Republicans, maybe 20, 30 percent of them at most have been discouraged and to the extent we can take this away from Donald Trump and make it more about Republicanism and conservatism, you’re going to see those voters reengage.
LUI: Let me add another data point for you, Zerlina. The Quinnipiac poll, which you’re very familiar with as well, comparing September 27th to the 30th, September 6th to the 9th. On this you can see on the right, a bit of a drop. About 3 percentage points for Democrats. Still, though, a delta difference there, as you see; seven percentage points. Again, question of stickiness and what might keep the stickiness for the Democrats if they want to stay on top of that?
ZERLINA MAXWELL: Look, I think that the focus of the Democratic Party since November, 2016, has been trying to pushback against an agenda that is anti-woman. That’s why you see women organizing across the country since Election Day, people that have not been involved in politics. And so the Kavanaugh confirmation actually is a moment in which it’s just an inflection point. It coalesces all of those folks and their energy around one fight and, yeah, in the short term, we perhaps lost this specific fight. But that doesn’t mean that it ends today. And that means that every single woman who was upset yesterday when they saw Kavanaugh confirmed is going to wake up today, donate money, go knock on some doors, go make some phone calls, go organize people in those states specifically the ten states where Democrats are running in those red states that Trump won in 2016, that Democrats must hold in order to even have a chance in the Senate. The house is a lot better terrain for us. So I think that the focus now is going to be on the energy and the anger of women and how we push that through organizing into victories on Election Day.
LUI: Well, you’re reading my notes as usual, Zerlina, and I want to go to The Wall Street Journal and one of their articles today, how Kavanaugh, and the whole fight so far is actually helping the GOP in the Senate races but not necessarily in the House races, which you were giving a hat tip there. Elie, what’s your thought here because, you know, we are only really 24 hours past what had happened, the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh and how both parties are absorbing the new reality?
ELIE MYSTAL: The thing about making a deal with the devil is that the devil backs up his bargain. All right. The devil does not Welch. Trump has delivered for these people on the things that they care about most. He has delivered racism for these people. He has delivered misogyny for these people and now he’s delivered the supreme court for these people, which is something that they’ve been trying to get for a generation. So then the question now becomes not so much like, oh, will this stick for the Republicans, I think it will stick for the Republicans, this is what they want. The question is what are the Democrats going to do? Democratic turnout doesn’t need to be high for a midterm. It needs to be high for a presidential election. All right? And that’s what we’re about to see. We’re going to see if this, if this reign that they now have control over all three branches of government, we’re going to see if this reign lasts for 30 days or two years or a thousand-year rich. Because that is how…that is what these people have set themselves up for and it’s simply a question of whether or not the Democrats are going to join the battle and meet them at the polls.
LUI: So I’m sorry, let me get it right, I’ve got too many names up here. What I wanted to ask you on this is so we’ve got on one issue the point that I think you’re trying to make, at least in part, that when it comes to SCOTUS, is resonates quite well on the right. On the left, it doesn’t quite have the same resonance so that means as the President goes out on to the campaign trail this week and he’s got three or four stops, you know, he’s going to be of course holding that flag of success for Democrats. They don’t want to see that, right, because it doesn’t have the same resonance in terms of the energizing of their base.
DANIELLE MOODIE-MILLS: Well, I’m not 100 percent sure about that because I will tell you right now what is driving women, what is driving the outrage that Zerlina is talking about, is Roe v. Wade. What is driving women right now is the idea that if I come forward as a sexual assault survivor, and my case and I hold my…I want to hold my person accountable and that case gets to the Supreme Court, guess what? I’m sitting in front of these two justices that have been accused of sexual assault. I think that this, I think that the Supreme Court and what has happened is going to stick with Democrats. I think that it is going to be a charging point because what we know now that is Brett Kavanaugh is going to be on the Supreme Court for the rest of my life and for, and for our children’s lives to come, you know, to come after.
LUI: That is the difference because we are now living through a movement that was not there before with such force and size as well as so public and so personal for so many. Okay, short break. As Brett Kavanaugh takes a spot on the bench, some Democrats are already using the “I” word. You know what that is; impeachment. And how that might help and hurt at the same time the party as the voters head to the polls in less than one month. Plus we’re taking a closer look at the most conservative Supreme Court in generations and what it could mean for the most high profile cases on the docket.
