This was gaslighting at its liberal-media worst. Trashing the Twitter hearing held yesterday by the GOP-led House Oversight committee, Morning Joe would have you believe that far from seeking to suppress Republicans and help Democrats, Twitter—98.47% of whose donations went to Democrats in 2020— actually bent over backward to help Donald Trump!
The most egregious example of Twitter's pro-Dem bias was its suppression, in the days leading up to the 2020 election, of the New York Post's reporting on Hunter Biden's laptop. But the panel literally laughed that off.
That's an odd take, coming after the New York Times and the Washington Post eventually admitted that emails found on Hunter's laptop were real, despite having initially suggested that they were Russian disinformation.
It tells you all you need to know about MSNBC that the dismissal of the importance of Hunter's laptop was led by none other than Jen Psaki, Biden's former press secretary who is now an MSNBC commentator. The panel piled on with a chorus of "no, nope," denying that people are interested in the subject.
MIKE BARNICLE: I mean, the idea that they think, apparently, their strategy is to key in on people who are vastly interested in what's going on on Twitter.
JEN PSAKI: [Chuckles] Here's what they care about: Hunter Biden's laptop and photos of Hunter Biden that nobody wants to see. That is what they are defending having out there.
SCARBOROUGH: Nobody.
And while Mika still falsely dismissed as "unsubstantiated" the allegations regarding Hunter Biden contained in that New York Post article, at yesterday's hearing a former Twitter employee admitted that suppressing the story was a "mistake." But somehow, Team Joe still painted the hearing as a silly flop.
Scarborough and Mika also tried to make things about themselves, raising for the umpteenth time their anger over Trump having made multiple tweets implicating Joe in the death of one of his aides back in his days as a congressman. Resorting to barnyard vulgarity, Scarborough also tweeted his fury on the matter yesterday.
Scarborough railed against the fact that Section 230, which provides social media platforms with immunity from civil liability based on third-party content, prevents him from suing Twitter for having published Trump's accusatory tweets. It doesn't stop Scarborough from suing Trump.
Scarborough also chipped in with an ugly attack on Republicans, saying "Do you give out felonies for just being dumb? I'm just wondering....Seriously, because there are a lot of Republicans on that committee that need to get themselves some good lawyers if they can." Presumably not "simple country lawyers," as Scarborough, with false modesty, likes to describe himself.
Morning Joe trashing the Republican-led Oversight Committee hearing on Twitter bias was sponsored in part by Liberty Mutual, Roman, and Sling.
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
2/9/23
6:05 am ETMIKA BRZEZINSKI: Republicans grill former Twitter employees grilled on Capitol Hill yesterday.
JOE SCARBOROUGH" This didn't really go the way they expected, did it?
MIKA: No. In an attempt to prove that the social media company singled out -- okay, right-wing voices for censorship. In a six-hour House Oversight committee hearing, the four former employees faced questions about the company's decision to ban the sharing of a 2020 New York Post article which made unsubstantiated claims about then candidate Joe Biden's youngest son, Hunter, shortly after the Post" printed the article.
Twitter pointed to concerns about hacked material as the reason for blocking the story. Twitter has since admitted that decision was a mistake. But in yesterday's hearing, the former employees refuted claims that the site colluded with the Biden campaign and FBI to influence the results of the 2020 election.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: That same former employee revealed that her bosses changed Twitter's internal rules. Mika and I know something about this.
MIKA: Yeah.
SCARBOROUGH: A lot about this. To accommodate Trump's hateful rhetoric against immigrants.
. . .
It's just shocking, isn't it?
MIKA: Good job!
SCARBOROUGH: It's actually the opposite of what the Republicans said was happening. Again, Mika and I saw it, dealing with, with, with Twitter. Say, wait a second, so it's legal for a guy to accuse somebody else of murder 12 times, but it violates all of these policies. And they go, yeah, well, we're looking into that. And then in this case, on, on, on, on this racist trope that fascists use, "go back to where you came from," they actually stopped letting that be a, a, a banned uh, uh, uh phrase because they wanted to change the rules for Donald Trump.
. . .
MIKE BARNICLE: I mean, the idea that they think, apparently, their strategy is to key in on people who are vastly interested in what's going on on Twitter.
JEN PSAKI: [Chuckles] Here's what they care about: Hunter Biden's laptop and photos of Hunter Biden that nobody wants to see. That is what they are defending having out there.
SCARBOROUGH: Nobody.
BARNICLE: The other night at the State of the Union, we were just talking about it off air, the President of the United States spoke briefly about the horrendous nature of costs of flying.
PSAKI: Hmm-mm.
BARNICLE If you're taking your family to a --
PSAKI: And resort fees!
BARNICLE: -- for a school vacation.
PSAKI: Yeah!
BARNICLE: Extra charges for baggage. A separate charge for a different seat, stuff like that. That resonates. This, Hunter's laptop, with continued hearings and haranguing about language and everything about that? I suppose at some level it's important, but the larger cosmic level, in terms of reaching people, I don't think so.
VARIOUS PANEL MEMBERS: Nope, no yeah.
. . .
SCARBOROUGH: Do you, do you give out felonies for just being dumb? I'm just wondering.
MIKA: I hope.
SCARBOROUGH: Seriously, because there are a lot of Republicans on that committee that need to get themselves some good lawyers if they can.
MIKA: Where do we begin? Where do we begin?
SCARBOROUGH: That's unbelievable.
