The partisan journalists at MSNBC proved they have no problem flip flopping when it comes to filibustering and the nuclear option. As the Republicans were voting to change the Senate rules, Thursday, and confirm Neil Gorsuch, MSNBC blamed Donald Trump. Andrea Mitchell lectured, “This is another history-making moment, which another White House might have been able to avoid, perhaps with better leadership.”
Mitchell even brought up Ronald Reagan’s chief of staffs as a way of avoiding culpability for the Democrats: “They knew enough to speak to someone on the hill. They would not have gone to the Heritage Foundation for a recommendation list for Supreme Court nominees. They would have talked to a Judiciary Committee, Democrats and Republicans.”
Mitchell, who noted, “I covered eight years of Ronald Reagan,” specifically mentioned Howard Baker. He was Reagan’s chief of staff when the President nominated Robert Bork...who was defeated by Democrats in a partisan effort. So maybe that's not her strongest argument.
In 2013, the journalists at MSNBC loved the filibusters when it was used to confirm Barack Obama’s judicial nominees.
Here are a few examples:
“I agree with you about this being an affirmative win for democracy. If that is the case, why do we still have the filibuster for legislation?”
— Host Chris Hayes on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes, November 21, 2013.“Let me start tonight with today’s daring attack, the Democratic breakout that could change the course of this political war. Nothing is more daring or more effective than the attack from a defensive position. It’s how Henry V won at Agincourt, how Alexander defeated the Persians. While that’s true of military strategy, it`s also true of political strategy, go from the defensive and make time go on the attack. Well, today, the Democratic leadership struck with all its pent-up fury. It broke through the lines that have strangled every effort to move the country forward, that have tried to kill every nomination, every policy initiative for rebuilding the country’s economy, for fixing the immigration system, for bringing equality of opportunity to the workplace, the same forces that have tried choking the president’s health care law in its crib. Well, as Diana Washington once sang, ‘What a difference a day makes.’ Due to the action of the Senate Democrats today, there will be no more 60- vote requirements to get the president’s appointments confirmed, no more dallying around and delay tactics, no more Mickey Mouse. And with any luck, there will be action.”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, November 21, 2013.
A partial transcript is below:
Andrea Mitchell Reports
4/6/17
12:23ANDREA MITCHELL: Joining me now is Chris Whipple, Emmy award winning producer and journalist and author of the new book The Gatekeepers: How the White House Chiefs of Staffs Define Every Presidency.
...
MITCHELL: In fact, you see right now that they're having a vote on the nuclear option on the Senate Floor, you can argue — I covered eight years of Ronald Reagan — that when you had Jim Baker and later, you know, Ken Duberstein and others in that chief of staff position, Howard Baker, they knew enough to speak to someone on the hill. They would not have gone to the Heritage Foundation for a recommendation list for Supreme Court nominees. They would have talked to a Judiciary Committee, Democratic and Republicans.
CHRIS WHIPPLE (Author, The Gatekeepers): Absolutely. Absolutely. I mean, as you remember, Jim Baker created the Legislative Strategy Group. It had brilliant people on it, Dick Darmin among others. Ken Duberstein was the congressional liaison. Those guys knew how to count votes.MITCHELL: And while we talk about counting votes, our ex-pert counter Frank Thorpe is calling in right off of the Senate floor where the nuclear option is being voted on.
FRANK THORP: Yeah, they're currently voting on the nuclear option. And what we're expecting here is they are actually going to be voting no on this motion. What they vote on is whether or not the chair is correct in assessing that a 60 vote session is needed to bypass a filibuster of a Supreme Court nominee. They want to change threshold to 51 to bypass that filibuster that Democrats went ahead and did today. They voted 55 to 45 to filibuster the nomination. Now what they’re trying to do is change the rules. This is obviously a highly contentious issue. This is something that neither side wanted to do. But this is something that Republicans had accepted — [Phone cuts out] and change these rules and chance this historic precedent.
MITCHELL: And Frank, I think our cell phone coverage isn’t as good as it needs to be. I know you will be standing by with a update on that. It's clear they're voting and the Republicans will be voting no and it’s basically to change the rules. This is another history-making moment, which another White House might have been able to avoid, perhaps with better leadership.
WHIPPLE: Yeah. Again, Ronald Reagan at his very first initiative wanted to go to Capitol Hill and reform Social Security. Back in the ‘80s, as you remember. And Jim Baker was smart enough to know that is the third level of politics. As he put it, “You touch it, you get electrocuted.” Jim Baker was able to change Ronald Reagan's course, and he decided to go for tax reform and the rest was history. I mean, I think, you know, I can't think of any examples of the current White House chief of staff as gone in and spoken truth to power with Donald Trump. And the bigger problem, of course, is that you have to have a president that wants to have a grown up in the room, who is willing to listen to news that he does not want to hear. It is not at all clear that we have that.
