UPDATE: Joy Reid comparing President Biden's COVID diagnosis to former President Trump being shot in the head occurred in the 6:00 p.m. Eastern hour. At the top of the 7:00 p.m. Eastern hour, Reid seemed to push the debunked conspiracy theory that Trump was not shot at all.
The election desperation was palpable during MSNBC’s coverage of Night Three of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday. With news just breaking that President Biden was diagnosed with COVID again, co-host Joy Reid tried to suggest that if Biden recovered from the cold quickly, it should be viewed as “exactly the same” as former President Trump surviving an assassination attempt where he was shot in the head.
At first, Reid praised Biden’s diagnosis because it supposedly provided a remarkable political “opportunity” for the Biden campaign to blame Trump for killing people:
And it’s also, a quite interesting opportunity for President Biden to also show being responsible. I assume he's going to put a mask on when he gets inside Air Force One and not spread COVID around. But also to remind people of what hell we went through with COVID because of Donald Trump. Here is a great messaging opportunity for President Biden to bring out the tape and remind people of how many people died; a million people are no longer with us. Peoples’ grandmas were dying alone with their iPad. A great opportunity and messaging opportunity should the white House choose to take it.
In reality, more people died from COVID under the Biden administration.
Reid swerved into a conspiracy theory territory when she seemed to hint that the shooting was staged because of the so-called “photo-op” on stage. “Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given nine seconds to take a photo-op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation, we'll figure that out one day,” she speculated.
She proceeded to whine that Trump’s “survival of that and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of strength.” That comment was followed up with her insane suggestion that Biden recovering from a bug 99 percent of people survived was somehow on par with surviving getting shot in the head with a bullet:
This current president of the United States is 81 years old and has COVID, should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing? That he’s strong enough – older than Trump – to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So, if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn't that exactly the same?
“It should,” former Biden flack Jen Psaki agreed. “It should.”
At the top of the 7:00 p.m. Eastern hour, Reid seemed to push a debunked conspiracy theory that Trump had actually got shot at all.
Joy Reid seems to suggest that Trump was not actually shot during the assassination attempt and finds it suspicious we have not been shown the wound yet:
— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) July 18, 2024
"Which is weird right?...It is odd that we have gotten no medical reports or details about what's happened." pic.twitter.com/m7l5b6RpV0
She found it suspicious that Trump’s former White House doctor, Texas Republican Congressman Ronny “Jackson is one of the few people, I will note, who apparently knows what’s under that bandage that Trump has been wearing at the convention.” “Which is weird, right?” she rhetorically asked the audience.
She also took issue with how “some in the media as a game changer for the race” while “we have gotten no medical reports or details about what's happened.”
The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The Beat
July 17, 2024
6:27:43 p.m. Eastern(…)
JOY REID: And it’s also, a quite interesting opportunity for President Biden to also show being responsible. I assume he's going to put a mask on when he gets inside Air Force One and not spread COVID around. But also to remind people of what hell we went through with COVID because of Donald Trump. Here is a great messaging opportunity for President Biden to bring out the tape and remind people of how many people died; a million people are no longer with us. Peoples’ grandmas were dying alone with their iPad. A great opportunity and messaging opportunity should the white House choose to take it.
(…)
6:29:19 p.m. Eastern
REID: Here’s the question that I have on that. These two men are both elderly. Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given nine seconds to take a photo-op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation, we'll figure that out one day. But his survival of that and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of strength.
This current president of the United States is 81 years old and has COVID, should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing? That he’s strong enough – older than Trump – to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So, if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn't that exactly the same?
JEN PSAKI: It should.
REID: I mean, it’s not exactly the same. It’s not the same incident but it's an elderly man coming through out of an illness.
PSAKI: It should.
(…)
(…)
7:01:19 p.m. Eastern
REID: Congressman Ronny Jackson of Texas. The former White House physician for presidents Obama and Trump, a scary thought in itself, who's now obviously a Republican congressman, having parlayed that position into a job in Congress. Jackson is one of the few people, I will note, who apparently knows what’s under that bandage that Trump has been wearing at the convention.
He says he replaced the dressing on Trump's ear on Sunday during the flight to Milwaukee, telling The New York Times, quote, “The bullet took off a little bit of the top of his ear in an area that, just by nature, bleeds like crazy. The dressing is bulked up a bit because you need a bit of absorbent. You don't want to be walking around with bloody gauze on his ears,” unquote.
And that's all we really know about Trump's injury, which is weird, right? Because an attempted assassination of a president or a presidential candidate is very big. It's a big, historical deal in a country where these kinds of incidents have taken place far too many times.
The attempted assassination of Trump has been framed by some in the media as a game changer for the race. Though, who knows? But it is odd that we have gotten no medical reports or details about what's happened. Why is Ronny Jackson the only doctor reporting what's behind that bandage? We'll be sure to let you know if he mentions it again tonight in his speech.
(...)
