Katy Tur tried her best to assist Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s re-election campaign when she accused his Republican opponent, Blake Masters, of hiding his views on abortion after winning the primary on Friday’s MSNBC Reports by scrubbing his website while ignoring Kelly doing the exact same thing on his website.
Kicking off the segment, Tur immediately went into activist mode, “This morning, President Biden met with state and local elected officials to talk about protecting access to reproductive health care on this Women's Equality Day. It comes as Democrats lean into messaging about protecting abortion rights while some Republicans seem to be trying to downplay their stances on abortion.”
Tur used Masters as proof, “the latest example comes from Arizona and the Republican Senate candidate, Blake Masters. NBC News has reported on some big changes on Masters's campaign website, softening his tone on abortion and removing references to some tough restrictions entirely. One example, on Thursday, his website said, ‘I am 100% pro-life.’ That language is now gone.”
Masters responded to NBC’s reporting on Twitter by calling out NBC for ignoring Kelly not only scrubbing abortion from his website, but axing the issues page all together.
Using Tur and NBC’s logic, that would suggest that Kelly is hiding his own radical views, but instead of having a nuanced conversation about abortion polling, Tur asked co-founder and CEO of All In Together, Lauren Leader, “What do you make of the fact that his website suddenly changed?”
Leader was happy to portray Republicans as the extremists on the issue, “Well, I think what's happening is that Republicans are waking up to the reality that overwhelming majorities of Americans support abortion rights. And when you look at questions of some of the most extreme bans, like those that have gone into effect in many states, just this week, even Republican and pro-life voters don't support them.”
Maybe one day, MSNBC will do a segment on “extreme” pro-abortion laws that even Democrats and pro-choice voters don’t support, but that will require MSNBC to stop being MSDNC.
This segment was sponsored by T-Mobile.
Here is a transcript for the August 26 show:
MSNBC Reports
8/26/2022
11:34 AM ET
KATY TUR: This morning, President Biden met with state and local elected officials to talk about protecting access to reproductive health care on this Women's Equality Day. It comes as Democrats lean into messaging about protecting abortion rights while some Republicans seem to be trying to downplay their stances on abortion.
The meeting is happening right now. The last example -- the latest example comes from Arizona and the Republican Senate candidate, Blake Masters. NBC News has reported on some big changes on Masters's campaign website, softening his tone on abortion and removing references to some tough restrictions entirely.
One example, on Thursday, his website said, “I am 100% pro-life.” That language is now gone. Let us bring in co-founder and CEO of All In Together, Lauren Leader. So Lauren, Blake Masters is now running in the general election. What do you make of the fact that his website suddenly changed?
LAUREN LEADER: Well, I think what's happening is that Republicans are waking up to the reality that overwhelming majorities of Americans support abortion rights. And when you look at questions of some of the most extreme bans, like those that have gone into effect in many states, just this week, even Republican and pro-life voters don't support them. And it is a political loser for a Republican candidates who are pushing these extreme bans.
And I think the longer -- the further we get from a Dobbs decision and the more we start hearing these horrific examples of children being forced to carry babies to term, of women being forced to carry fetuses that aren't viable. I mean, just these horrific stories that are beginning to emerge, that are the real impact, the real-world impact of these extreme abortion bans, it's becoming politically toxic. And what we saw in Kansas is actually very representative of what we believe we're going to be seeing through the polls that we've been running coming up in the midterm elections. And that message is getting through.
