On Friday’s edition of Morning Joe, the panel engaged some predictable hyperbole and exaggeration with regards to the latest developments in the Stormy Daniels saga, namely that President Trump did in fact reimburse his personal attorney Michael Cohen for $130,000 he paid the porn star in the weeks leading up to the election, despite his past denials.
The overwhelmingly liberal White House press corps railroaded White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at Thursday’s press briefing, accusing her of providing them with false information when she said that the President had no knowledge of the reimbursement. Morning Joe happily joined the anti-Trump and Sanders-bashing chorus on Friday morning.
Co-host Mika Brzezinski highlighted an editorial in The Wall Street Journal arguing: “Mr. Trump is compiling a record that increases the likelihood that few will believe him during a genuine crisis-say, a dispute over speaking with the special counsel Robert Mueller or a nuclear showdown with Kim Jong Un. Mr. Trump should worry that Americans will stop believing anything he says.”
Panelist Donny Deutsch pontificated that despite the fact that “the first 28 minutes of this show” illustrate “a Presidency in free fall beyond comprehension,” the President’s poll numbers have improved. Deutsch thought that this proved that “a huge part of this country is just not paying attention.”
The conversation then turned to Sanders, where another panelist, anti-Trump Republican strategist Susan Del Percio, accused her of “telling the public lies when she goes out there.” For her part, Sanders maintained that she answered questions using “the best information that I had at the time.”
Panelist Mike Barnicle then decried the “literal tsunami” and “fire hydrant of false information coming from this White House every day,” adding “this is how democracies die.”
Deutsch warned that “if Donald Trump continues to stay in office and succeed, and if Donald Trump wins the Nobel Peace Prize, not only have we normalized lying, we are celebrating and saying ah, that’s the way, that’s the way to the top.”
Most Democrats, including Deutsch, would probably consider the Clinton presidency successful, yet he lied under oath about having sex with a White House intern.
Referencing Barnicle’s earlier statement, Brzezinski closed the segment by plugging two liberal books: How Democracies Die, written by two Harvard professors, and Fascism: A Warning, written by former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright.
The media has made it perfectly clear that they have an agenda. No point illustrates this better than an MRC study showing that CNN hosted Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti 59 times in the past two months while Avenatti has appeared on MSNBC eight times over four days. For all of the talk about Sanders’ credibility, it seems like the anti-Trump legacy media has a credibility crisis of its own.
To see the relevant transcript, click "expand."
MSNBC's Morning Joe
05/04/18
06:28 AM
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: The Editorial Board of The Wall Street Journal is out with a new column this morning entitled “The Stormy Daniels Damage,” and they write, in part, “Most storms pass eventually. This week Donald Trump tried to ensure that Stormy Daniels doesn’t rain down permanent distraction on his Presidency, though at the cost of further damage to his credibility…Mr. Trump’s public deceptions are surely relevant to his job as President, and the attempted cover-up has done greater harm than any affair would have…Now, as more of the story has emerged, he wants everyone to believe a new story that he could have told the first time. Mr. Trump is compiling a record that increases the likelihood that few will believe him during a genuine crisis-say, a dispute over speaking with the special counsel Robert Mueller or a nuclear showdown with Kim Jong Un. Mr. Trump should worry that Americans will stop believing anything he says.
DONNY DEUTSCH: Mika, here’s the problem with that, a sobering problem. We, if anybody followed the first 28 minutes of this show, they would go “this is a Presidency in free fall beyond comprehension.” Yeah, his numbers are up a few points and they’re still in the low 40s but they’re up and whether that’s because of North Korea or it’s because his base plus a few just, at this point, are still not buying, obviously we’ll see what comes out with the indictments, we’ll see what happens where, as Mueller goes forward but the kind of real tragedy behind this is beyond the Presidency, is the mirror coming back that a huge part of this country is just not paying attention.
BRZEZINSKI: Well, and then there’s the issue of Rudy Giuliani, Trump’s chump and Sarah Sanders and whether, what category do we put her in? Is she another sort of syncophant that can’t tell, contain the President, can’t say “No, Mr. President, I’m not going to lie?” Or how would you characterize what we’re seeing happening in the press briefings, which are important because this is the White House going on the record? It is the White House’s statement or responding to questions and giving the White House’s take. Have we ever actually gotten the White House’s take on any legitimate questions out of those press briefings? Have we ever gotten any truth out of them? Have they become to the point where not only has she lost the room, but they’ve become null and void?
SUSAN DEL PERCIO: Well and that’s the challenge for her right now and for our country frankly because let's not forget, she’s not just there speaking on behalf of the president. She is speaking to the country from the White House. She is telling the public lies when she goes out there. She’s not just lying to the press corps, we know Donald Trump has no problem telling lies to the press corps. But she’s lying to the American public and I think she needs to own that. Anyone, whether it be her or anyone that goes out there. Because unfortunately whoever is going to be at the podium is going to be in the same exact position as Sarah Sanders. There’s no way to get beyond that. And it is just so disturbing…I've been someone, I’ve stood up for clients before, I’ve had to deal with certain uncomfortable things, but being ignorant or lying about it is just not an excuse.
BRZEZINSKI: What, is no comment a better option?
DEL PERCIO: Well I think not having these, why not not have the briefings? If you’re just going to lie, why bother?
MIKE BARNICLE: You know Mika, we understandably talk about this every day, multiple times a day. Because there’s a, just a literal tsunami, a fire hydrant of false information coming from this White House every day. But it’s larger than that. And the problem and the threat and the danger is much larger than just the White House and just us talking about it. It’s what happens out in the country. Dealing every day, people dealing every day with the normalization, the normalization of lies, and deception coming from the President of the United States and those who represent the President of the United States. And people get used to it. And people slowly turn off what they hear and it doesn’t impact people and they end up not really caring about the fact that the President of the United States is a liar. And that people who represent him lie on a daily basis. This is, this is how democracies die, slowly. Right in front of us. Every single day. Deception and lies become normal.
DEUTSCH: Mike I'll tell you one thing. It’s worse than normal. It's becoming elevated. If Donald Trump continues to stay in office and succeed, and if Donald Trump wins the Nobel Peace Prize, not only have we normalized lying, we are celebrating and saying ah, that’s the way, that’s the way to the top. So it’s even scarier than normalization.
WILLIE GEIST: And that’s why we stop at moments like Dr. Bornstein the other day, where, you know it was sort of a laughable thing, the guy is a weird character and all. The President of the United States dictated his own medical records, he invented his own medical records and presented those as his own bill of health. We don’t know anything about the President of the United States’ health. Do you trust what Dr. Ronny Jackson said from the podium a couple of months ago now that we know the President dictated a letter to Dr. Bornstein? So these things that fly by and get buried, they all add up to something bigger and that’s why we stop and say, no it’s an outrage and a scandal that you dictated your own health records. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal to some people. We don't know if our President’s healthy, that’s just one more lie.
DEUTSCH: Oh and by the way, Rudy, that’s the storm trooper play. Everything that Donald Trump has done, so many things starting with completely bastardization of the truth. Let's go look at storm troopers there, not what the FBI is doing.
BRZEZINSKI: Two Harvard professors wrote the book How Democracies Die. Everybody should read it. Everybody should also get Former Secretary of State Madeline Albright’s book, “Fascism: A Warning.”
