Glee for Donald Trump’s COVID illness was on full display Wednesday night as MSNBC prepared for the vice presidential debate. Co-host Rachel Maddow mocked Donald Trump’s “proof of life” video and sneered, “Is that the President or is that the drug talking?”
Offering what could be the biggest understatement, Maddow prefaced, “I am not somebody who necessarily always understands the President's appeal. I will cop to that at the outset.” She sneered, “There's a number of things that were just jarringly unsettling about this video from the President, including his appearance. That's not the most important thing except when it's the President trying to do a proof of life video and him being made up, it's weird.”
A proof of life video? Like a hostage video? Can anyone imagine MSNBC talking about a Democrat this way? Earlier, the callous Maddow derided the recovering Trump as “on drugs”:
He is also taking a powerful steroid that has turned everyone into an armchair pharmacist wondering whether that steroid might potentially be the reason he spent, for example, all night and day tweeting in all caps about how his political enemies should be arrested and why hasn’t and why hasn’t anyone arrested them yet? Is that the president or is that the drug talking? Is it the weird the President's on drugs now? Is that okay?
During the same hour, co-host Joy Reid hyperbolically suggested the Oval Office wouldn’t be safe if Biden won:
REID: They’ve turned the Oval Office into a hot box of coronavirus. In which today I was thinking out loud, is it safe for Joe Biden if he wins the White House to move into that Oval Office the next day?
WALLACE: They leave the windows open for a few days between—
REID: I’d be a little afraid if I were Joe Biden to go in there.
The next day? Election day is November 3. A new president isn’t inaugurated until January 20th. Is Reid not aware of this?
The hate on MSNBC was sponsored by ClearChoice and Volkswagen.
A partial transcript is below.
MSNBC Live coverage
10/07/2020RACHEL MADDOW: But the President is also, as I mentioned, under treatment for that virus too. He received an experimental antibody treatment. He’s been getting intravenous infusions of another experimental drug. He is also taking a powerful steroid that has turned everyone into an armchair pharmacist wondering whether that steroid might potentially be the reason he spent, for example, all night and day tweeting in all caps about how his political enemies should be arrested and why hasn’t and why hasn’t anyone arrested them yet? Is that the president or is that the drug talking? Is it the weird the President's on drugs now? Is that okay?
...
JOY REID: They’ve turned the Oval Office into a hot box of coronavirus. In which today I was thinking out loud, is it safe for Joe Biden if he wins the White House to move into that Oval Office the next day?
NICOLLE WALLACE: They leave the windows open for a few days between—
REID: I’d be a little afraid if I were Joe Biden to go in there.
(....)
MADDOW: Phil, briefly, let me ask you about this video we saw from the President tonight. I am not somebody who necessarily always understands the President's appeal. I will cop to that at the outset. There's a number of things that were just jarringly unsettling about this video from the President, including his appearance. That's not the most important thing except when it's the President trying to do a proof of life video and him being made up, it's weird. It looks like a British pantomime. The video -- the President said it was a gift from God that he was infected. He claimed to have discovered a cure and he's going to get it to everybody. It was — my — my view of this, subjectively, is that this was ill-advised. This made the President seem a little nutty, nuttier than usual.
The reason I bring this up and tell you my perception of it is because I'm wondering because of the number of senior White House staffers who have tested positive, because of the number of senior White House staffers working from home, is it possible this is the sort of thing that might have been gate keepered before, that someone would have stopped him from doing this but now he's doing whatever he wants and nobody is around to tell him no?
