The mainstream media is a walking contradiction. Their bias aside, they will say one thing yet act in a completely different way, even live on air during the same program. Morning Joe displayed this tendency to flip-flop during the Wednesday segment, talking about Joe Biden’s VP pick of Kamala Harris. Co-host Joe Scarborough brings on Al "Tawana Brawley" Sharpton and sets him up to fawn over Harris with his question, “Reverend Al, what's your take on Kamala's selection? What does it mean in 2020, especially at this time?”
Al Sharpton’s response is nothing short of the never-ending praise you would expect from him:
I think the choice of Kamala Harris is the wisest choice for Joe Biden and for right now where we are in politics in 2020, because she brings a perfect balance. We are dealing with a nation that is going to have to deal in this pandemic time with how regular people survive. She has a background of having grown up with a single mother and her sister. She knows the struggles, she knows what it is to live in a community that has problems with police but also problems with gun violence, and she was a prosecutor and dealt with that. So, she brings real life into this. she was the one that brought the race issue to Joe Biden during the debates, so we would feel she will bring to him the kind of advice that will not be watered down as vice president, if they're successful. And when we get beyond the pandemic and we try to build this country out of a huge deficit, you need somebody in the room that understands what it is to know how to make ends meet and to know how it is not to be able to pay the bills. She would be in the room. She would be in the situation room when we’re dealing with a global kind of politics. So, I think it is a good political choice.
No kidding that she knows about problems with police, during her time as AG of California she jailed people for marijuana charges and laughed about it later live on air. But I’m guessing that’s not what Sharpton is referring to here. Scarborough’s next statement is so egregious though, it’ll make you laugh out loud:
And there may be a temptation by some out there to tweet or to write or to say something about, oh, don't talk down to a woman, blah, blah. You know what? We're not going to engage, as Jeb Bush would say, in the soft bigotry of low expectations. We're going to treat Kamala Harris, a black woman, just like we're going to treat Mike Pence, a white man, just like we're going to treat anybody white. And when she screws up, we're going to call her out, not because she's a black woman, but because she's running for Vice President of the United States.
Oh you’re gonna call her out Joe,really? You failed to call her out on her record in California, you failed to call her out after she trashed Brett Kavanaugh with unfounded lies and accusations. You failed to call her out when she praised Joe Biden later after insinuating that he was a racist during her presidential campaign. You failed then and you will fail now, because you have no interest in calling out Democrats, only Republicans. While you continue to push this narrative, be sure to not spill your drool cup over because after today It’s filled to the brim.
Choice Hotels sponsored this drooling coverage that continued on for 30 more minutes, go here and tell them how you feel about that.
Read the full transcript below to learn more.
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
08-12-20
6:05 AM ETJOE SCARBOROUGH:You get no extra points in the long run for a big, exciting announcement. It usually blows up in your face. If you're going to select Dan Quayle, Geraldine Ferraro, or Sarah Palin as your vice presidential pick, what you do a month before is you just say to somebody, hey, I'm thinking about picking Dan Quayle. I'm thinking about picking Sarah Palin. Thinking about picking Geraldine Ferraro as my vice presidential pick. What do you think? And the media and the activists love drama. They love to be surprised. They love to say, who? Who did he pick? Who did she pick? No. Don't surprise. Don't sneak up on the press. It never ends well. And I've been saying this when I was a politician, I say it now. What's so interesting about the Kamala choice is that Joe Biden is getting the positive effect of a landmark choice. And a lot of people were saying before, well, Kamala Harris, that would be a boring pick because --
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Well, that's good, if that's true.
SCARBOROUGH: Everybody knows that, you know, she's a front-runner. There's no excitement. Wrong. It's a landmark pick, regardless. And the best thing is, it was also the selection that made the most political sense, that was the most expected. And will most likely generate an awful lot of support among contributors to Joe Biden's campaign and also among the black voters that saved Joe Biden's campaign in South Carolina and across the deep south earlier this year, and also the same black voters that didn't show up as much as expected during the 2016 campaign, which was really the difference between Hillary Clinton being President of the United States and Donald Trump being President of the united States. Let's bring in Reverend Al Sharpton. Reverend Al, what's your take on Kamala's selection? What does it mean in 2020, especially at this time? And we have to also ask, does she move Donald Trump closer to leaving the White House, or does her selection somehow give him second life among those, quote, which the media would say, the angry white voters in Wisconsin and Michigan and Pennsylvania and Florida? The press says that, not me.
AL SHARPTON: I think the choice of Kamala Harris is the wisest choice for Joe Biden and for right now where we are in politics in 2020, because she brings a perfect balance. We are dealing with a nation that is going to have to deal in this pandemic time with how regular people survive. She has a background of having grown up with a single mother and her sister. She knows the struggles, she knows what it is to live in a community that has problems with police but also problems with gun violence, and she was a prosecutor and dealt with that. So, she brings real life into this. She also, for those that consider ourselves Progressive, she was the one that brought the race issue to Joe Biden during the debates, so we would feel she will bring to him the kind of advice that will not be watered down as vice president, if they're successful. And when we get beyond the pandemic and we try to build this country out of a huge deficit, you need somebody in the room that understands what it is to know how to make ends meet and to know how it is not to be able to pay the bills. She would be in the room. She would be in the situation room when we’re dealing with a global kind of politics. So, I think it is a good political choice. She will galvanize a vote that wasn't there, as Mika said. She went to Howard University, the AKA’s and others, that have been marginalized. We keep talking about the marginalized like they're just the latte liberals. There are a lot of us that have never been excited that are excited about somebody that has had our experience, black and white, Latino and Asian, that have had to struggle in this country now being on the ticket. She'll bring that out. Historically, I think it is great. I started as a teenager working for Shirley Chisholm's campaign for president '72, I became 18, the first year I could vote. Shirley Chisholm dreamed of being president and breaking that ceiling. In '84, when Jesse Jackson ran, he talked about a woman should be on the ticket. We got Geraldine Ferraro that year. He helped set that climate. And now, to be able to see a black woman on the ticket is historic, and it comes in a trajectory of people that came before her, and she will live up to those dreams. And I think she will make America better. I think Donald Trump, if he thinks this is good for him, the angry, white American voter that he thinks is there, is there, and they're angry at him for putting us in the pandemic. He's right about that anger. He's wrong about what they're angry about.
SCARBOROUGH: Let's talk about Kamala Harris, though. And you brought up the debate, so let's talk about the fact that a lot of people thought she demagogued the race issue with Joe Biden. Seemed like she was calling for a return to bussing. She flip-flopped on Medicare for all. She corrected herself during the campaign, but after a great launch, her campaign faltered and it never really took off. You've talked to Kamala Harris. You know her. Is she someone who learned from those experiences, from those failures?
SHARPTON: I think she learned. I think she's very, very clear that she can make mistakes and correct them and she's not arrogant enough to be self-righteous. I also think she spoke from her heart at the debate. I was at the debate that night, about she was the girl that was the victim of bussing. But at the same time, she had to deal with a policy that would work. And that is what you want in someone that leads, someone that can go for what they believe in but correct themselves if they misstep. And we do not need someone like we have now in the White House, that they cannot admit a mistake, even when someone shows a better way or a better point, and she's proven the maturity and the security to be able to do that.
SCARBOROUGH: By the way, just let me just say this -- and I'll say this with you, rev, off the top, and if you have any corrections, you can tell me. But we're at the beginning of a process now where a black woman's going to be running for Vice President of the United States. And I just said, did she learn from the mistakes that she made during the campaign? And there may be a temptation by some out there to tweet or to write or to say something about, oh, don't talk down to a woman, blah, blah. You know what? We're not going to engage, as Jeb Bush would say, in the soft bigotry of low expectations. We're going to treat Kamala Harris, a black woman, just like we're going to treat Mike Pence, a white man, just like we're going to treat anybody white. And when she screws up, we're going to call her out, not because she's a black woman, but because she's running for Vice President of the United States. And can you speak to that, Reverend Al? First of all, I've got to say, yesterday was a landmark day. You had a black national candidate and I didn't hear one person talk about how she was, quote, articulate, which poor Barack Obama had to hear about a thousand times during the 2008 campaign. Oh, he's so articulate. And I'm sitting there looking at these people going, what are you talking about? I did not hear "articulate" once yesterday. So, we've moved past a certain landmark. But can you just talk about that? As we move through this campaign process, the best thing for Kamala Harris, the best thing for black women is that she is treated like everybody else and the woke latte liberals don't try to put a bubble around her, because that's going to do nobody any good, certainly not the Democratic ticket.
SHARPTON: The most biased way that you can operate is to patronize us and act like we're really not qualified to be vice president, so don't treat us like a real vice presidential candidate. Kamala Harris, who I know well, wants to be treated like anybody else that ran for vice president because she's tough enough, and she's shown that during the campaign. Treat her as you would anyone else, as you would Joe Biden. Don't forget, Joe Biden was one that said that he could understand when he was in the '08 primaries against Barack Obama. Well, I can understand they're excited about an articulate, clean, black candidate like those of us that ran before Obama were not clean and articulate, and he was challenged on that, and he grew. Treat him -- treat her the same way. We beat up on Joe Biden. Obama selected him anyway and ran with him and won. She wants to be treated that way. Don't patronize us like we can't handle ourselves. Kamala Harris can handle any attack coming her way. I'm sure she's ready for it right now, probably up working out because she's tougher than you would give her credit for. We're not looking for a break. We're looking for equality. Come on with it. Whatever you've got, come on with it.
SCARBOROUGH: Exactly. Exactly. Kasie hunt, why don't you give our viewers insight into kamala? Mika and I have been fortunate enough to know her. I've noticed personally -- I was very surprised personally, the first time I met her several years ago. She is very warm, very engaging, has a winning smile, a great laugh, a wonderful conversationalist. She puts people around her at ease in person. But she was, I think early on especially -- I noticed like Bob Dole was always that way behind the scenes, but sometimes when Bob Dole got on TV, he could be a little more stiff, a little more strident. And I noticed with Kamala, sometimes that winning personality did not project itself onto the TV screen in certain circumstances. I think the 2016 campaign changed that a good bit. I think she learned a lot during that campaign, just like, you know, Ronald Reagan learned through his two campaigns that he lost. I'm wondering, though, about your interactions with her on the hill, your insights on who Kamala Harris is.
KASIE HUNT: Yeah, presidential campaign is a crucible. There's no way around that. And I think that fact that she went through that crucible's a big part of why Joe Biden chose her. And I think you make a series of great points, and these are not about gender. This is about -- Political talent. I agree with you, she is warm, she is -- she comes across in a room, and there are men, women, Democrats, Republicans who have this kind of talent -- you want to get to know her. She pulls attention just naturally by the force of her personality. And when she came to Washington -- and I've covered her since basically the day she arrived, because she arrived at the same time as Donald Trump in 2016-2017, and it was very clear from that very day that she was going to run for president. And her team was very careful, and I think she -- you saw this, I think, the learning curve playing out in real time, when she ran for president. And I saw a smaller version of that as she figured out the senate and how to build a national profile. It doesn't happen overnight. And when you come from California, where it's pretty far away from the east coast here and the decision-makers here, so she set up kind of private dinners with reporters where we had a chance to get to know her off the record. She had meetings with strategists. She laid all of that groundwork very carefully. And I remember when she first started in the hallways of the senate, she wouldn't necessarily come up and talk to us. You know, we were always chasing her down the hallways. If you're somebody like her, with her kind of profile, you are likely to get chased by reporters. And she was pretty wary initially. But with time, she got more comfortable with it, and you could see her staff kind of helping her navigate that until she was comfortable with it. And I think you saw a similar trajectory play out on the judiciary committee, where she evolved into a very sharp, high-profile questioner of president trump's nominees. And that's a big part of how she built her profile. And my question, when she launched her presidential campaign, was always, did she have enough runway to learn that challenge in the same way that she had attacked the other challenges that I watched her go through? And I think we saw the answer, because she did make some mistakes. Ultimately, her campaign didn't work out. But the presidential campaign is an incredible crucible, and I have no doubt based on my observations from before that she has learned from that. And I think the Biden team must be pretty confident that she certainly can stand up to the cleglites on the stage like Mike pence, for example, and it's invaluable. There's really no other way to learn it except to run for president. It is the hardest thing to do in politics. And while she did not succeed, at least she's done it once.
