During Friday afternoon’s MSNBC Live, host Katy Tur compared President Trump to a four-year-old. Here was Tur laying out her analogy: “We generally sometimes talk about the President in saying that the best way to get him not to do something, or to do something, is to tell him not to do something. That’s how you talk...that’s what happens with your four-year-old.”
Behaving like a faithful MSNBC guest, Jonathan Lemire of the Associated Press agreed: “Yeah, my four-year-old, that is exactly how it works but that is, in some ways, how this President works. He doesn’t like to be told no.”
In light of Friday's events, one would think the media would have been a little nicer to President Trump seeing as how he decided to allow the reopening of the government without any money for his border wall. Alas, it wasn't meant to be. Instead, Tur, reading a quote from her colleague Peter Alexander, slammed the President for causing a “wasted five weeks of financial pain.”
Shortly before Tur compared the President to a four-year-old, Lemire argued that “the best way to get the President involved in something is to tell him not to because of how difficult he is to manage.”
Lemire also brought up President Trump’s “veiled threat” to declare a national emergency to build the wall, an idea which Tur dismissed: “He’s been making that threat for a long time.” Lemire seemed to agree, asking “Is this the boy who cried wolf?” Tur ultimately concluded: “I’m not sure if that’s real news because we have been hearing that over and over again. He’s never done it; if he was going to do it, he probably would have done it before this shutdown.”
As this segment on MSNBC demonstrates, the liberal media industrial complex will never, ever give the President credit for anything. In response to President Trump’s decision to reopen the government, Michigan Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee gloated about the President taking a “defeat lap.”
When asked by Tur if the State of the Union was back on, Kildee smugly replied: “It felt like, watching the President from the Rose Garden, that he may have already given it.” Before jumping on President Trump, the media might want to take a look in the mirror.
A transcript of the relevant portion of Friday’s edition of MSNBC Live With Katy Tur is below. Click “expand” to read more.
MSNBC Live With Katy Tur
January 25, 2019
02:41 p.m. Eastern
KATY TUR: I’m going to co-opt this question from my colleague, Peter Alexander, because I think it’s a really good question. He says, the question for the President today is, how can you cast this as anything other than a wasted five weeks of financial pain for Americans that was caused by him?
JONATHAN LEMIRE: It would be a very hard sell for him to do so. I mean, I guess it would be along the lines of he was fighting for his principles, he was fighting for his campaign promise. But no, this is, it’s hard to sell. This is anything but an unnecessary bit of pain for, for a lot of…I would say a lot of pain, for nearly a million federal workers and also a political disaster for the President, who has seen his poll numbers slip here in recent weeks, who has even shred some Republican support. You know, even though he does on the whole remain very popular within his own party, you know, we saw his numbers take a hit in the last couple of days. And, you know, he is, now, he is going to have to learn to live with not getting that wall. Yes, a deal could be struck. Jake, Jake is right. There, there’s a way here for both sides to come out, I think border security, it won’t be a wall, you know, but it…can the President live with that? You know, as Jake also said like, can the White House stay out of these negotiations? Can the President himself sort of take a step back? The best way to get the President involved in something is to tell him not to because of how difficult he is to manage. So that may be something that is tricky. We know how many times have we seen the President seem to have a well-laid plan blow up because early in the morning or late at night he goes on his phone and goes on Twitter and shatters something? And a further point, he did close there with that idea, that sort of veiled threat or not so veiled threat.
TUR: But he’s been making that threat for a long time.
LEMIRE: That’s right. And that’s the issue. Is this the point?
TUR: And Republicans are not behind this.
LEMIRE: Right. Is this the boy who cried wolf?
TUR: Yeah.
LEMIRE: Is this, is this…does that, does that threat carry any leverage?
TUR: I’m not sure if that’s real news because we have been hearing that over and over again. He’s never done it; if he was going to do it, he probably would have done it before this shutdown…
LEMIRE: Right, our reporting…
TUR: …and saved himself all of this trouble.
LEMIRE: Sure, our reporting suggests that it was something they certainly did look at and explore and then backed away from it. And as you said, there are many Republicans on the Hill who want no part of that, thinking that first of all, it takes away some of their power but also they’re afraid of the precedent it could set for a future Democratic President.
TUR: You know, you talk about the President, not you specifically, we generally sometimes talk about the President in saying that the best way to get him not to do something or to do something is to tell him not to do something. That’s how you talk…that’s what happens with your four-year-old.
LEMIRE: Yeah, my four-year-old. That’s, that is exactly how it works. But that is in some ways how this President works. He doesn’t like to be told no. He has surrounded himself on his staff right now, where there are very few people who can ever tell him like, sir, that’s a bad idea and we know how impulsive he is and how reactionary he is, particularly to media and, and in the conservative media, which is what got him in the shutdown mess to begin with.
TUR: And the people who were telling him no, he has systemically gotten rid of.
LEMIRE: Yes.
TUR: He no longer has John Kelly as his Chief of Staff, he no longer has Defense Secretary Mattis in charge of the military. All of the people who have pushed back on him have found themselves either resigning or being fired by this President. Hold on a second, we have Democratic Congressman Dan Kildee of Michigan here. Congressman, this announcement from the President that he’s going to give you guys three weeks to figure out what you are going to do about border security and funding the wall, will he get any money for his wall in the next three weeks?
REP. DAN KILDEE: Well, I think we will for border security just as we have said all along when we debate these bills, when we debate Homeland Security appropriation bills, of course we deal with border security. But, you know, let’s keep in mind, this takes us right back where we were. The position that we took from the very beginning is that we should submit this question to the legislative process and keep the government open. I mean, I have seen a lot of things with this President for the first time. I have seen people give victory laps. This is the first time I have ever seen somebody go to the Rose Garden and take a defeat lap. He basically lost everything and I hope that it’s a lesson that this President takes heed of. You can’t close the government down. You can’t shut the government down as leverage and the unwillingness to submit the question to the legislative process. We could have done this in December. We suggested this in December. A few weeks ago, Lindsey Graham suggested this very same thing. Why the President had to put the country through so much pain, put 800,000 people through so much agony to come back to this very point proves, frankly, he just seems to be unfit to do the, to the job he’s elected to do.
TUR: It’s not just those 800,000 people, it’s all the federal contractors…
KILDEE: For sure.
TUR: …who are not going to get back pay for these five weeks off. It’s the businesses surrounding government buildings that haven’t had business since these government buildings have basically been shutdown; these ghost towns that have been created by this government shutdown. There are a whole lot of folks that aren’t going to get the money back that they lost from this.
KILDEE: Right.
TUR: But I do want to focus on the next three weeks, are you confident that we’re not going to be in the very same spot come February 15th that we are today?
KILDEE: Well, I certainly can’t predict what the President will do but I have faith in the legislative process that we’ll come to some resolution and that we’ll come up with legislation. The President may not like it but I think that’s okay. I think one of the major failures here is that the legislative process did not get, get a chance to work its way and if Mitch McConnell takes a lesson from this, if, if Republicans in the Senate take a lesson from this, it’s that we’re going to have to come to some resolution, it may not be what the President wants. But we shouldn’t cede the authority of the Congress of the United States to the President. We shouldn’t give him the authority to also be the Republican leader of the Senate. We should do our job; if the President doesn’t like it, he can veto it. But I don’t think we should condition what we do on this end of the building based on the whim or a tweet from the President.
TUR: Is the State of the Union back on?
KILDEE: That’s a good question. I do not know. It felt like, watching the President from the Rose Garden, that he may have already given it.
