If Elise Jordan is pro-Trump, she's more skilled at hiding her allegiance than any mole John le Carré could ever have dreamed up!
In 2019, we caught Jordan calling Trump a "classic scumbag!"
And ever since, the former aide to President George W. Bush has well earned her title as an "MSNBC Republican," i.e. one who can be counted on to attack virtually all things Republican, and Donald Trump in particular.
But since airing focus groups last week in which black voters in Philly and voters in the Philly suburbs expressed concerns over crime, and holding another focus group letting Trump supporters air their views, Jordan has been viciously attacked from the left.
Hilariously, one such lefty actually tweeted: "Today Elise Jordan (closet trumpy) aired a focus group that was at best fraudulent & criminal at worst."
Lock her up!
There have been many other such tweets going after Jordan. On today's Morning Joe, the panel rode to her defense.
Jordan facetiously described her predicament
"Maybe I've made it in the world, now that I'm a corporate media hack, apparently. Maybe I've really arrived."
Joe Scarborough jumped in to defend his colleague:
"We actually had people who were outraged all day, that we actually were saying that there were black voters in Philadelphia who were afraid to go to work and afraid to go to school. Oh, it was like, talking about us, that we were somehow creating crime as an issue in the Pennsylvania race. No, black voters in Philadelphia were saying it was important."
We won't be surprised if Jordan soon does something to repair her tattered "MSNBC Republican" street cred. But in the meantime, credit her for conducting focus groups with real voters, and sharing her findings--uncomfortable as they were to the left--with the Morning Joe audience.
Morning Joe defending MSNBC analyst Elise Jordan against attacks by the left for her conducting focus groups that found that black voters in Philly are concerned about crime, and another focus group with Trump supporters in the Pittsburgh area, was sponsored in part by Liberty Mutual and United Healthcare.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
10/25/22
6:06 am EDTMIKA BRZEZINSKI: Former aide to the George W. Bush White House and State Department, Elise Jordan, whose focus groups are creating a little bit of a ripple effect.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: And we also have the host of Way Too Early, White House bureau chief for Politico, Jonathan Lemire.
MIKA: Oh, wow.
SCARBOROUGH: You know, Elise, my grandma from Dalton, Georgia, would have said of you, well, she sure kicked a hornet's nest yesterday, didn't she?
MIKA: You did.
SCARBOROUGH: You have people on the left pulling their hair out. You know, ready to jump out of windows. You had people on the right talking about how mean and angry you were. And there were others saying you that were owned, the lib, who of course like libertarian-conservative.
MIKA: So you're saying she did a great job.
SCARBOROUGH: Lifetime Republican Elise Jordan was owned by those people who said, yes, I believe the moon was made of cheese, and she just sat there dumbfounded. She didn't know what, cheese, they think the moon is made of -- and somehow, you were owned because some people followed conspiracy theories.
ELISE JORDAN: I mean, maybe I've made it in the world now that I'm a corporate media hack, apparently. Maybe that's, you know, I've really arrived.
I think it is a sign, though, that we are talking about topics that we need to address, that it has hit so many nerves. And we saw, you know, on the day when we did the crime segments, and we heard directly from black voters in Philadelphia and their thoughts on crime. And we heard from swing voters in Bucks County on crime. And we heard a lot of consensus about, and worry about, the rising level of crimes, of crime, and that hit a nerve, too.
So I think we just need to keep talking about --
MIKA: We do.
JORDAN: -- Topics that are uncomfortable but need to be addressed.
SCARBOROUGH: Well, and that's the thing. Of course we actually had people who were outraged all day, that we actually were saying that there were black voters in Philadelphia, who were afraid to go to work and afraid to go to school. Oh, it was like, talking about us, that we were somehow creating crime as an issue in the Pennsylvania race. No, black voters in Philadelphia were saying it was important.
