Leave it to MSNBC to twist the rhetoric of the Tea Party following Thad Cochran’s upset of Chris McDaniel in the June 24 Mississippi runoff. On Tuesday's Now, host Alex Wagner and David Corn of Mother Jones both strongly suggested that racism is the reason why the Tea Party objected to thousands of Democrats pushing Cochran to victory.
Wagner sneered, “This is particularly pointed for the Republican Party, not just because it's Republican versus Republican but the votes they are questioning are predominantly black votes.” She then took things up a notch, claiming that the Tea Party views black voters as illegitimate: [MP3 audio here; video below]
Mississippi GOP Runoff
By Connor Williams | July 9, 2014 | 10:59 AM EDT
By Connor Williams | June 26, 2014 | 11:15 AM EDT
On the June 25 edition of Hardball, fill-in host Steve Kornacki and his guests discussed the implications of Thad Cochran’s surprising upset of Chris McDaniel in the Mississippi GOP Senate runoff. The panel mocked the Tea Party’s outrage at Thad Cochran over his courting of Democratic voters in the primary.
Kornacki laughed off Chris McDaniel’s assertion that the outcome was unbecoming of the party of Ronald Reagan, explaining: “That is the same Ronald Reagan who we named the Reagan Democrats after because he cultivated all that Democratic support when he ran for President.” David Corn agreed, criticizing the Tea Party because the “Republican Party has been trying to get black people to vote for them for a long time, and finally when it happens Tea Partiers get upset.” [MP3 audio; video below]