It's not just frustrating. "Frustrating is an understatement," says Mika Brzezinski.
So what's got Mika so frustrated? It's Kamala Harris's inability to get her message out. In Mika's view, the only person who can do it for her is Barack Obama.
Morning Joe opened today's show with a clip of Obama speaking yesterday. As you'll see in the video, Obama boasted that he was the guy who did a great job on the economy, and then handed it off to Trump, who doesn't deserve credit.
Trump "didn't do nuthin'," claimed Everyman Obama, the Harvard Law grad and squire of a sprawling Martha's Vineyard estate. Where are the "fact checkers"?
Eugene Robinson led off the lavish praise of Obama's oratory skills, calling him "a massive political talent" and a "unanimous first ballot, Hall of Fame of politics for all time."
Kamala can't get her message out but Obama can. So if he's a Hall of Famer, guess that makes Kamala a rookie low-A leaguer!
But what Mika is really saying is Kamala can't get her message out if people aren't persuaded to vote for her. MSNBC is getting her message out daily, and the people who don't like her are not watching MSNBC.
Mika asked MSNBC Republican Elise Jordan what Kamala can do to get persuadable Republicans to vote for her, despite acknowledging that "Harris is not going to be the president of [their] choice. It's not going to be great from [their] point of view." [I'll say!]
Jordan's prescription: convince those Republicans that Kamala's "not a radical liberal."
Good luck with that, Elise!
Jordan claimed that "the Trump campaign [hasn't] managed to paint her as a radical San Francisco liberal." But surely Jordan has seen some of the Trump ads making that case. Take this one, in which Kamala in her own words supports taxpayer-funded sex change surgery for illegal alien inmates. It doesn't get any more "radical San Francisco liberal" than that!
Here's the transcript.
MSNBC
Morning Joe
10/11/24
6:08 am EDTBARACK OBAMA: We had had 75 straight months of job growth that I handed over to him. It wasn't something he did. I spent eight years cleaning up the mess that the Republicans had left me the last time. So just in case everybody has a hazy memory, he didn't, he didn't do nuthin'. Except those big tax cuts.
. . .
WILLIE GEIST: How effective is Barack Obama, and how much do you expect to see the Harris campaign use him in these couple of weeks?
EUGENE ROBINSON: Well, the man can talk, right? He gives, he gives a great, great speech. And that was really -- it was entertaining. It was informative. And I think for Democrats in Pennsylvania, which is ground zero right now, it was inspiring.
I mean, they need to get Democrats out to the polls. And who better to do that than Barack Obama? And I just cracked up when he, you know, "That was my economy," that line . . . Obama, you know, you see why he is unanimous first ballot, hall of fame of politics for all time, right?
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Right.
ROBINSON: Because you can see what a massive political talent he is.
MIKA: There's no question, Symone, that former President Barack Obama is able to deliver a message about Trump that doesn't appear to be breaking through in any other way. Like actually saying, truthfully, he is lying about this. He is lying to you about this. He is lying about legal migrants, Haitian migrants in Springfield.
Sometimes you just -- it's, it's frustrating -- that'll be an understatement -- to see that not break through with, especially, Republicans or just decent human beings, who should be able to see the difference between right and wrong.
Barack Obama, with joy and with humor, is able to sort of get through to an audience that it's not okay to lie. It's not okay to sell the presidency. It's not okay to be a narcissist and to have the reins of the presidency.
. . .
So, Elise, what's the reasonable argument for Republicans who are supporting Donald Trump at this point, but there's a chance you can -- I mean, it's country over party.
. . .
To me, it seems you gotta be kind of honest about where we are. Okay, Kamala Harris is not going to be the president of your choice. It's not going to be great from your point of view, because you're not going to have all the policy agreements that you would have perhaps with a real Republican nominee.
. . .
What's the argument to reasonable Republicans that you can do this? You could actually vote for Kamala Harris, and actually believe that that is a path to the Republican party ultimately rebuilding itself, having a chance to unleash itself from the chains of this cult leader?
ELISE JORDAN: Right-leaning voters who are considering Kamala Harris need to know that she's not a radical liberal. And I don't think that the Trump campaign has managed to paint her as a radical San Francisco liberal. And that's what they were trying to do from the onset. They haven't had much time, and they haven't really been able to do it.
