MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle has been continuing her play-by-play daily attacks on the new Trump administration, but as usual she seems to be focusing heavily on her disdain for the (in her view) stupid, selfish, and heartless ordinary Americans who voted in the current administration. On Wednesday night’s episode of The 11th Hour, she hosted a panel featuring Philip Bump of The Washington Post, Newsweek editor-at-large Tom Rogers, and Betches Media co-founder Sami Sage, in which they took stock of the current political climate as they saw it.
Ruhle continued to bemoan Trump’s recent government spending cuts. She also decried the more favorable reaction of much of the public and their lack of overt outrage, which to her meant they lacked any sort of empathy:
There's a surprising amount of people that are saying ‘USAID, that foreign country, how does that impact me?’... Why aren't more people outraged? It's as though we've lost our- our empathy gene in the American people… right now it seems like, ‘Well, you know, if I don't need childcare, that's not my problem. Go fish.’
Sage also got into the act of lashing out at Americans. “We are in such a deep hole of antisocial cultural norms that our information ecosystem is making so much worse,” Sage agreed with Ruhle.
She continued to give her prognosis on how Americans were wrong to want a business-like government and how those businesses supposedly owed everything to the government:
What I think we are seeing is what happens when you test this theory that the government should be run like a business. And what I think these people are taking for granted is that all of these businesses that they could run, and cut, and take their profits from- those businesses were backed by the credit of the US government, because they're American businesses based on the dollar. So when you get rid of that, at one point, the stock market will just say, we can't hold this anymore. There is no confidence.
Ruhle soon turned back to the theme of a stupid, selfish public, saying “The government is in charge of ensuring that we are physically safe, socially free, and financially secure. And when I say financially secure, people set their hair on fire saying ‘this government isn't in charge- of handouts, they shouldn't pay the American people.’... Where is this vitriol coming- from the American people- of “this isn't suiting me so damn the rest?”
Apparently, in their minds the average American was so selfish, stupid, and calloused that there was no point in even trying to sell them such programs even in the context of some sort of greater self-interest. If ordinary Americans didn’t immediately see a tangible payoff for themselves, they could be counted on to just throw away whatever they didn’t want, not caring about the consequences for anyone else.
Rogers then interjected that the “Democrats are not helping by defending the status quo.” Arguing that, “The Republicans are all about retribution, and- retribution being their governing theme here, the Democrats should be about reform. And they should be about cost cutting also…” But his idea of reform and cost cutting was just Democrats targeting jobs in red states: “make sure it's stuff in districts of southern senators with pet defense projects that have no business being funded…”
Ruhle followed up by knocking the American people for supposedly not knowing how the government worked: “Maybe they are audited every year- the American people don't know- but Republicans are running the table convincing the American people it's all just fraud and waste.”
It was interesting to note that Ruhle said that although “the American people don’t know,” “maybe” USAID was being annually audited. Evidently, she had no idea either, despite casually throwing that out there as evidence that it was not just “fraud and waste,” and that opposition to it stemmed from a selfish and short-sighted reaction based on lies.
Bump summed up the attitude and whined about people not trusting him since he worked for The Post:
But-what we're not talking about here is there's a huge universe of liars, like it's always been lying about this stuff… I sit at my institution and I try and say, “here is what's happening in the world.” And there are, you know- 45 percent of Americans think that I'm a liar by virtue of where I work, right? And they just don't listen.
Evil masterminds, a malicious, stupid public fed on lies, a Democratic Party too upstanding and wholesome to be anything but a controlled opposition, and a self-image of being somehow better and smarter. By now, at least, MSNBC’s interpretations are pretty predictable.
To read full transcript, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
02/05/2025
11:08 PM(…)
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: PROTESTS ERUPT OVER DISMANTLING OF USAID]
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Okay. But there's a surprising amount of people that are saying “USAID, that foreign country, how does that impact me?” Or the fact that Head Start, right? The child care program that now doesn't have access to federal money after Donald Trump's temporary- funding freeze? Why aren't more people outraged? It's as though we've lost our- our empathy gene in the American people. Not that, oh, you have to only care for others, but, if society thrives, we all thrive. But right now it seems like. Well, you know, if I don't need childcare, that's not my problem. Go fish.
SAMI SAGE (Betches, co-founder): We are in such a deep hole of antisocial cultural norms that our information ecosystem is making so much worse. But I think the idea that we're going to try to explain the benefit of USAID in the context of soft power, and how this keeps all of us safe in a way that we take so for granted, I think that we are just so far behind that.
But what I think we are seeing is what happens when you test this theory that the government should be run like a business. And what I think these people are taking for granted is that all of these businesses that they could run, and cut, and take their profits from- those businesses were backed by the credit of the US government, because they're American businesses based on the dollar. So when you get rid of that, at one point, the stock market will just say, we can't hold this anymore. There is no confidence.
RUHLE: Okay. It's so funny that you say that because I often say, you know, that the government shouldn't run like a business, right? The government is in charge of ensuring that we are physically safe, socially free, and financially secure. And when I say financially secure, people set their hair on fire saying “this government isn't in charge- of handouts, they shouldn't pay the American people.” But financially secure means ensuring that the banking system is sound, ensuring that when you deposit money, it will be there, making sure that for years and years, when you pay into the Social Security system, when you retire, it will be there for you. Where is this vitriol coming- from the American people- of “this isn't suiting me so damn the rest?”
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: TRUMP’S MOVES COULD TEST US COURTS]
TOM ROGERS (Newsweek, editor at large): Well, it comes from a lot of sources, and the Democrats are not helping that by looking as if they're defending the status quo-
RUHLE: Okay, that's- that's a really interesting point.
ROGERS: And if you're going to understand public sentiment here and put yourself on the right side of it, you got to understand that there is skepticism of government, and you have to stand for something that's intended to show you're willing to reform it. And the Republicans are all about retribution, and- retribution being their governing theme here, the Democrats should be about reform. And they should be about cost cutting also, because we know we have to tame government in certain ways.
But why don't they have their list of cost cuts that are going out there, rather than simply protesting about USAID money going away? Go out there and say, “No, you're at the wrong place. This is where we ought to be cutting,” and make sure it's stuff in districts of southern senators with pet defense projects that have no business being funded, that are costing taxpayers billions of dollars and creating huge inefficiency. And it makes no sense to me that they aren't out there with that kind of counter.
RUHLE: This is a really good point, and it's tricky because Democrats have to thread this needle, right? They- they want to defend our institutions, but at the same time not say “the status quo no matter what.” Just because it's called USAID and just because they do tons of hugely important work does not mean that they shouldn't be audited. And guess what? Maybe they are audited every year- the American people don't know- but Republicans are running the table convincing the American people it's all just fraud and waste.
SAGE: Yeah, Elon Musk is running- is running a wonderful propaganda campaign over on X about what the USAID is paying for. But if you want to find waste and fraud in the system, why don't you take the $1 trillion that the IRS said that they lose every year- in 2021, they said this-
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: LAWSUITS IMMINENT OVER TRUMP’S DISMANTLING OF USAID]
RUHLE: Thank you.
SAGE: Take that- that they lose to tax cheats. And then the Biden administration tried to add- agents to recover hundreds of billions of dollars of this money. So talk about that. Why can they never change the conversation- like- go around the issue? Why do you have to just say- why do they have to always be in the frame of what the Republicans put them into? And they always fall into this trap-
RUHLE: The IRS needs more employees, the IRS needs updated systems, and Republicans wouldn't give the Biden administration the money to collect the- the humans, to work, to collect the money that's already owed to us.
PHILIP BUMP: But - what we're not talking about here is there's a huge universe of liars, like it's always been lying about this stuff. Like, this is why, right? We saw this conversation about the IRS, we saw this conversation about USAID. And it's just lies, right? And the challenge that we have is we're sitting here and- you know- I sit at my institution and I try and say, “here is what's happening in the world.” And there are, you know- 45 percent of Americans think that I'm a liar by virtue of where I work, right? And they just don't listen.
(…)
