In a surprising move, liberal MSNBC host Chris Hayes defended Republican presidential candidate Marco Rubio from The New York Times article attacking his personal finances on Wednesday, calling the story a “snobbily judgmental nothingburger.” (VIDEO: MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe’ Mocks NYT’s ‘Absurd’ Coverage Of Rubio’s Boat)
“I’m in the — I was basically found myself in strange company in the wake of this piece,” Hayes said. “Because I was basically in the — this is a nothingburger and not just a nothingburger, a weirdly kind of snobbily judgmental nothingburger in tone.”
Ironically, Hayes managed to find possibly the only conservative guest who thought the Times’ attack on Rubio was legitimate: Miami Herald columnist A.J. Delgado.
“We’re in the twilight zone when you’re defending Rubio and I’m criticizing him,” Delgado said. “But yeah, I do think it’s something legitimate. If somebody is running for the Republican Party nomination — which theoretically one of the tenets is fiscal responsibility of my party, right? — we do have the right to ask questions.”
But Hayes offered something of a liberal defense of Rubio, disputing the common Republican meme that balancing the budget was like balancing a household budget. “You heard it all the time, particularly in 2010, 2012: we have got to tighten our belt, like a family budget in hard times.” (RELATED: Marco Rubio Raises $100K After New York Times Stories)
“Folks like myself say, no, they had nothing to do with each other,” he said. “You can’t print money in your household budget. Ergo, whether he wants to buy a boat or not doesn’t strike me as relevant about where he’s going to be on defense spending or sequester.”