MSNBC hosts Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle on Friday suffered a total meltdown after Donald Trump’s CPAC speech, foaming that the “strange,” “lie”-filled address was reminiscent of brutal dictators such as Fidel Castro and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Ruhle labeled certain comments “absurd across the board.”
Velshi fumed, “There were a lot of lies in the speech... It was a remarkable speech. It was lie to new topic to another lie. It was very strange speech.” How often were MSNBC hosts concerned about the big lies told by Barack Obama during his two terms? Immediately after the “truly sprawling, meandering” speech ended, Velshi compared Trump to thug dictators:
A sprawling, truly sprawling, meandering speech by the President. The likes of which — I was saying to Stephanie — I'm used to having heard from Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Erdogan. President Putin gives something like this every year, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used to give speeches like this.
As an aside, Ruhle snapped: “Historically, the amount of lies the President has told, and this administration, over the last year, that is unprecedented.”
Velshi was clearly angry that the President called out the media during the speech. He seethed that journalists really just want to help Americans: “[Trump] keeps pointing to the back row, all the media, how they're against us. No, we're trying to keep you honest because you're lying to the crowd in front of you.”
A partial transcript of the February 23 segment is below. Click on “expand” to read more:
MSNBC Live
2/23/18
11:30ALI VELSHI: Okay. A sprawling, truly sprawling, meandering speech by the President. The likes of which — I was saying to Stephanie — I'm used to having heard from Hugo Chavez or Fidel Castro or Erdogan. President Putin gives something like this every year, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad used to give speeches like this. By our executive producer's conservative count, he touched on 31 at least 31 different topics in the speech. None of which were Russia, by the way. Russia didn't come up.
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Absolutely no mention of Russia. When, remember, last Friday, 13 Russians were indicted. The President made no mention of it. If the White House is watching, I would like to ask you, the President said over and over about these great trade deals that this administration is renegotiating.
VELSHI: Yeah.
RUHLE: We cover that every day here.
VELSHI: I don't know of any.
RUHLE: Please, let us know what they are. And to the audience, we couldn't see the audience, only President trump, when they were cheering about when President Trump was talking about leaving TPP, unless the audience was filled with Chinese people, I have no idea —
VELSHI: Chinese factory workers in particular.
RUHLE: I have no idea why they'd be cheering. Leaving TPP has absolutely not done anything for America or the American worker.
VELSHI: He keeps talking about NAFTA, which he talked about in the election. They also still haven't done anything about that. Remarkable. This was a remarkable speech.
RUHLE: Touching on voter fraud there. We know the President's voter fraud commission that was put together was, of course, disbanded. When he was talking about the stock market, he said he liked the fact there was that correction. He'd been saying, hey, isn't it going to go down? That’s just absurd. Absurd across the board. He continued to say nothing has ever been done like this historically. Historically, the amount of lies the President has told and this administration over the last year, that is unprecedented.
VELSHI: There were a lot of lies in the speech, including the stuff you mentioned about trade, but talking about the fact that wages are finally going up. They hadn't gone up before his administration. Wages started going up — it was true that it stagnated for a while after the recession. 2015 was the year that wages started to go up. They went up in '15, went up in '16 and and went '17, and we think they're going up. It was a remarkable speech. It was lie to new topic to another lie. It was very strange speech.
