Stephanie Ruhle, the host of MSNBC Live, charged during the Thursday morning edition that “Hillary Clinton faces a double standard every day, right, left and center” before she dismissed the concept that “the liberal media” spend most of the time “just going after” GOP presidential candidate Donald Trump.
As proof of her outlandish assertion, Ruhle stated: “The media was front and center Sunday morning playing [the video] over and over and over when Hillary Clinton tripped. ... Is it fair to just say and dismiss ‘the liberal media is out there trying to make a case against Donald Trump?'”
However, her guest -- Bill Kristol, founder and editor of the political magazine The Weekly Standard --
responded by stating that Clinton “did trip or faint or swoon or whatever happened. She has pneumonia,” unlike Trump, who recently received a clean bill of health from his physician.
The discussion began with a review of the 2016 presidential race as it stands now. Kristol asserted that Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson and Green Party representative Jill Stein “are getting over a third of the vote of people under 30. Think about that. Obama carried that vote by 2 to 1.”
He then noted:
Hillary Clinton is not getting enough support, and they don’t like Trump, the young voters. I think Hillary Clinton hasn’t made the case to them.
I think that’s the broader problem here. The whole Clinton campaign and the liberal media and everyone else has been totally obsessed with disqualifying Donald Trump.
“I dislike Donald Trump,” Kristol continued. “I think he shouldn’t be president of the United States, but I think most of that information is out there.”
“The fact he’s 15 pounds overweight is not going to cause people to vote against him,” the conservative pundit stated. “What is the case for Clinton? Think about this. This is an honest question.”
At that point, Ruhle stated that Trump “has done things that are reprehensible.”
“I totally agree with that,” the guest noted. “I think most people know that,” but “the Clinton campaign, the media is playing into Trump’s hands inadvertently. He’s not the one who collapsed” at the 9/11 memorial.
He added surprisingly: “I don’t think you should vote against Hillary. It’s a phony issue. Both seem to be perfectly healthy and fine, healthy enough to be president of the United States. So I don’t think that’s the big issue.”
“That’s only because we don’t know everything about his health,” the host responded.
“Right,” Kristol stated. “That’s a very fair point to make, and we don’t know everything about his tax returns or everything about his foundation.”
“But I kinda think that point has been made a lot,” he continued, “and if I were the Clinton campaign, analytically, what’s happened here, they've hammered Trump.”
As a result, the Republican candidate's “numbers are bad. It’s not like people like Donald Trump. He’s got horrible favorable/unfavorable numbers, but Hillary Clinton hasn’t made the case for herself.”
“Obviously, yesterday, she was home,” where “she went on a tweet storm. You saw that, 20 tweets all about Donald Trump’s foundation and how horrible it is.”
“She needs to do more,” Kristol asserted. “I don’t like her much either,” but “it’s a change election. Voters want change.”
“I was in the first Bush White House in ’92,” he said. “When people want change, they will excuse a lot. More than they should, about the challenger, about the person who says 'I’m going to bring change.'”
“Whatever you think about Trump, he’s got to get tough on immigration, get out of wars in the Middle East,” the conservative activist charged. “Voters can say, yeah, things need to be shaken up.”
“What is Hillary Clinton going to do to improve people’s lives?” he asked. “She needs to make that positive case for herself in my opinion.”
“Is she not doing that?” Ruhle asked. “This woman has devoted her career to the political arena. She’s got her policies out there.”
As NewsBusters previously reported, this isn't the first time Ruhle has gone into spin mode for a Democrat. In early August, after the father of Orlando terrorist Omar Mateen was seated behind the Democrat at a rally in Florida, she replied to the development by stating: "I don't know what I think, but it's definitely noteworthy."
Then on August 22, Ruhle responded to criticism that President Barack Obama should visit weather-torn Louisiana by asserting that “it takes a lot of money” for the Democratic official to travel anywhere.
We don't have to wonder what Ruhle would have said about GOP President George W. Bush's arrival to assess the damage done to the Gulf Coast in 2005 by Hurricane Katrina, a move slammed by Democrats and the mainstream media as being too slow. He is a Republican, after all.
