According to Andrea Mitchell Reports guest host Kasie Hunt, President Biden's agenda is so popular that Republicans are trying to take credit for it, even though they vote against it. There was just one problem with the Thursday segment: in order to provide evidence for their claim, MSNBC had to deceptively edit Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell's Tuesday remarks in Kentucky.
Hunt claimed, "This kind of goes back to what are the Republican incentives to go along with this bipartisan deal and Mitch McConnell hasn’t really said one way or the other whether he thinks it's better to let it go through because we've also seen him in particular take and in this case it was the American Rescue Plan which Democrats did on their own, he went home to Kentucky and he took credit for it anyway, politically speaking."
She then played a montage of alternating clips of McConnell allegedly taking credit for the influx of money Kentucky will see under the ARP and Biden mocking him for it. The first clip of McConnell showed him saying, "So you will get a lot more money. I didn't vote for it, but you're gonna get a lot more money."
Those two sentences should have been enough to debunk the segment's entire argument as McConnell clearly said "I didn't vote for it," but the montage continued:
MCCONNELL [JULY 6]: Kentucky will get close to $700 or $800 million.
BIDEN [JULY 7]: It's a great thing for Kentucky, it’s getting $4 billion to help the poor. It’s amazing.
MCCONNELL: If you add the total amount that will come into our state: $4 billion. My advice to the legislature, and others, local officials is spend it wisely.
With that Hunt returned to ask MSNBC Republican David Jolly, "I mean, David Jolly, if there was ever cynical politicking, please explain what we just saw there."
What we saw was MSNBC cut off McConnell's remarks. Here's the full context:
If you add up the total amount that will come into our state, $4 billion, that’s twice what we sent in last year, so my advice to members of the legislature and to others, local officials, is spend it wisely because hopefully, this windfall doesn’t come along again.
The reason I say ‘hopefully’ is because I think we’ve floated entirely too much money across the country, and we’re seeing the consequences ... I won’t ask for a show of hands on this, but I know virtually every one of you in one way or another is experiencing the raging inflation or difficulty getting people back to work.
He would go on to add that pumping money into the economy is not the right thing to do when the economy is coming back on its own. Who is doing the cynical politicking now?
Of course, Jolly did not point this out, but rather he dutifully repeated, "what we're seeing in Mitch McConnell’s behavior here: vote for the legislation and take credit back home."
This bit of journalistic deception was sponsored by T-Mobile.
Here is a transcript for the July 8 show:
MSNBC
Andrea Mitchell Reports
12:10 PM ET
KASIE HUNT: It's easy for them to say we have to do these things in tandem and this giant reconciliation package, we’ll just move it right along, I mean they have to write it and it's just an enormous undertaking and sometimes I think we lose sight of that. The other piece of this, David Jolly is even if Democrats and this kind of goes back to what are the Republican incentives to go along with this bipartisan deal and Mitch McConnell hasn’t really said one way or the other whether he thinks it's better to let it go through because we've also seen him in particular take and in this case it was the American Rescue Plan which Democrats did on their own, he went home to Kentucky and he took credit for it anyway, politically speaking. So take a look at this montage we cut up of what McConnell said in Kentucky versus what the president then had to say about his comments and then I'd love to hear your thoughts.
BEGIN CLIP
JOE BIDEN [JULY 7]: Mitch McConnell loves our programs. Did you see what Mitch McConnell said?
MITCH MCCONNELL [JULY 6]: So you will get a lot more money. I didn't vote for it, but you're gonna get a lot more money.
BIDEN: He told me he wasn’t going to get single vote in order to allow me, with the help of everybody here, the $1.9 trillion tax cut, I mean, excuse me, program for economic growth. Look it up, man. He's bragging about it in Kentucky.
MCCONNELL: Kentucky will get close to $700 or $800 million.BIDEN: It's a great thing for Kentucky, it’s getting $4 billion to help the poor. It’s amazing .
MCCONNELL: If you add the total amount that will come into our state: $4 billion. My advice to the legislature, and others, local officials is spend it wisely.END CLIP
HUNT: I mean, David Jolly, if there was ever cynical politicking, please explain what we just saw there.
DAVID JOLLY: Yeah Kasie, I think very few politicians can ever be accused of being consistent and that is what we're seeing in Mitch McConnell’s behavior here: vote for the legislation and take credit back home, but I would also say and it's indicative of something that Democrats rightly know, but should also be reminding themselves, there is zero incentive for Republicans to work with Democrats, none, zero, so don't count on it. There will not be a loyal adversary or loyal partner even on some basics of infrastructure. You may bet the bipartisan infrastructure package, but it will be unremarkable, the reconciliation package that includes human infrastructure and the Biden, more progressive priorities and I think ultimately what you're seeing is President Biden and Hill Democratic leaders wrestle with is the bully pulpit is only so big and it only carries so much weight and while Biden is trying to balance infrastructure priorities, voting rights priorities, he really has to choose to do this sequentially and we've seen that from Biden, he really takes this sequential approach and I think the reason he's leaning into infrastructure perhaps more so than voting rights right now despite the urgency around voting rights is he knows the votes are within reach on infrastructure because of reconciliation, he could declare victory on that and the votes are not within reach in voting rights and he doesn't want to go down that road and ultimately fail before the American people.
