Anyone who watches Morning Joe regularly has witnessed daily reminder of Donald Trump's overly-optimistic statements at the beginning of the pandemic about the virus subsiding. Joe's maniacal obsession with taunting President Trump on the matter has at times gotten so bad that even his wife Mika Brzezinski at one point feared for Joe's mental health.
But on Monday's show, NBC correspondent Kasie Hunt claimed that the media "truly, deeply, hope" that the virus is brought under control.
Hunt's assertion was belied by the way in which Mika mocked Florida governor Ron DeSantis's assertion back in May that the media wouldn't give the state credit for its handling of the virus. Brzezinski repeatedly touted the latest virus numbers in the Sunshine State, sarcasm dripping from her voice. And it was in response to Mika's archly-asked question as to whether the RNC would hold its convention in Jacksonville that Hunt said:
I know all of us truly, deeply hope, much to the contrary of those who have said that — and you played Ron DeSantis saying this at the top of the show, that the media was interested in seeing him fail: simply not the case. Americans are pulling for these states to be able to make a dent in these cases.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
7/13/20
6:00 am EDTRON DESANTIS: You got a lot of people in your profession who waxed poetically for weeks and weeks, how Florida was going to be just like New York. Wait two weeks, Florida's going to be next! Just like Italy: wait two weeks. Well, hell: we’re eight weeks away from that and it hasn’t happened . . . So we've succeeded and I think that people just don’t want to recognize it because it challenges their narrative.
. . .
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: It’s actually worse than New York. Florida governor Ron DeSantis doing his best impression of President Trump in April and May, scolding the media for not praising his state's success in tamping down the pandemic. Well over the weekend, Florida hit the highest single-day total of known cases in any state since the start of the coronavirus pandemic.
The state of Florida, which I believe they want to have the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville in a matter of weeks, has shattered the record for new cases of coronavirus in a single day, recording more than 15,000 cases on Sunday. That's 3,000 more than the previous record set by New York back in April. Hospitalizations also increased in Florida with more than 18,000 seeking treatment . . . Kasie Hunt, are they really going to have the Republican National Convention in Jacksonville in the middle of a pandemic?!
KASIE HUNT: Well, Mika, the list of Republicans who are saying, "no thank you, not interested in attending such an event," is growing. And people are still holding back a little bit, because there’s a period of time between now and then, when I know all of us truly, deeply hope, much to the contrary of those who have said that — and you played Ron DeSantis saying this at the top of the show, that the media was interested in seeing him fail: simply not the case. Americans are pulling for these states to be able to make a dent in these cases. There are so many Americans suffering right now--we obviously cannot lose sight of that.
