The Washington Examiner’s Tim Carney probably won’t be getting a call from any of MSNBC’s “NewsNation” bookers about an appearance any time soon.
On MSNBC’s “NewsNation” on Friday, host Tamron Hall got into an on-air disagreement with Carney that led to her producers cutting him completely out of an interview segment.
The two got off to a rocky start discussing MSNBC’s coverage of a Washington Post story about Mitt Romney’s high school years. But in a follow-up question to Carney, Carney protested the premise of Hall’s entire line of questioning.
“[W]hat you’re doing here is a typical media trick,” Carney said. “You hype up a story, and then you justify the second day coverage of the story by saying, ‘Oh well, people are talking about it. Here’s how Romney responded to it.’ No. Let’s move on to substantive issues.”
Hall fired back, insisting that she sets the rules and the agenda.
“Hang on, because you’re kind of in my house here,” she said. “The problem is this: The story is out there. You’re right. I am not saying that we should belabor what happened 50 years ago. We’re talking about the response by the campaign and by the governor. Not just on this issue.” (RELATED: Full coverage on MSNBC)
“You are bringing up a meta story here, which is what is Romney’s response to this other nonstory?” he responded. “I’m trying to go ‘meta meta’ on you and say here’s the media treatment of the Romney response.”
And that was it for Carney. Hall had heard enough from her invited guest, and she monopolized the balance of his time.
“You don’t want me to ‘go’ anything on you because you’re actually irritating me right now,” she said. “I’m going to be honest with you … you knew the topics we were going to discuss. You knew them. You agreed. And we are not talking or demeaning — listen, 50 years ago I was a much tougher kid probably than Mitt Romney was in high school. I’m not talking about the issue of whether he was bullying or not. He said he doesn’t remember. To be fair, I cannot say that he does.”
“What I’m asking you about is how the campaign has handled this decision, handled this situation, how he handled the Colorado reporter, how he handled same-sex marriage where he said he agrees with gay parents being able to adopt but he does not agree with same-sex marriage — just the handling of questions beyond the economy. If you’re not comfortable about that, I am A-OK, but you’re not going to come on and insult me. You won’t come on and insult the network when you knew what you were going to talk about.”
“Done. Let me talk to Jimmy. I’m done.”