From Mika Brzezinski to Joy Reid, MSNBC had its share of horrid moments throughout 2023.
1. ‘Morning Joe’ guest claims Trump will build concentration camps if reelected
Mimicking liberals’ comparisons of former President Donald Trump being a dictator, The Bulwark editor-in-chief Charlie Sykes argued former President Donald Trump plans to become an “authoritarian” dictator and build concentration camps.
“Donald Trump is laying out what Trump 2.0 would be,” Sykes said in a Nov. 13 segment, noting Trump’s praise of Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban and other “authoritarian thugs.” “His admiration for Chairman Mao, his admiration for [Chinese] President Xi [Jinping] and [Russian President] Vladimir Putin is intense, to turn the government into a weapon of revenge and retribution, the plans — the detailed plans — for massive deportations and concentration camps.”
Sykes’ comments were in response to Trump vowing to “root out” his political opponents in a Nov. 11 Truth Social post.
2. Former Democratic senator Claire McCaskill suggests Trump is “worse than Hitler”
McCaskill told a “Morning Joe” panel with a straight face that Trump is “worse” than Adolf Hitler, who killed roughly six million Jews and millions of others during the Holocaust.
“A lot of people have tried to draw similarities between [Benito] Mussolini and [Adolf] Hitler and the use of the terminology like ‘vermin’ and the drive that those men had towards autocracy and dictatorship,” McCaskill said. “The difference, though, I think makes Donald Trump even more dangerous, and that is he has no philosophy he believes in.”
3. Comparisons to Hitler continue with ‘Deadline’ host Nicolle Wallace
Wallace, a former Republican, said Trump’s rhetoric is dangerous for saying terrorists coming through the U.S.-Mexico border are “poisoning the blood of our country.” She cited MSNBC’s Steve Benen claiming Trump’s rhetoric “echoes language used in Nazi propaganda by Adolf Hitler when Adolf Hitler said that Jewish people and migrants were ‘causing a blood poisoning’ of Germany.”
“Jonathan [Greenblatt], I want to start with you,” Wallace began. “I want to read you something that our friends over at Maddowblog have reported. This is from Laura Barrón-López, the White House correspondent for PBS, who told her viewers last night, ‘I checked with a historian, Ruth Ben-Ghiat, and she said that the language that he’s using echoes language used in Nazi propaganda by Adolf Hitler, when Adolf Hitler actually said that Jewish people and migrants were, quote, causing a blood poisoning of Germany.'”
4. Joy Reid says the Republican Party is unwilling to accept slavery is bad
Reid, a known race-baiter, said Republican Florida Rep. Byron Donalds was “mowed down like the lawn” by other Republicans for criticizing parts of the state’s then newly released curriculum on African American history.
“He got mowed down like the lawn because you can’t even say ‘slavery was bad’ now in the Republican Party. That’s how far it’s gone and that’s not even Trump with the policy. It was DeSantis,” Reid said.
Florida passed a curriculum including lessons on slaves learning “specialized trades,” including painting, carpentry and healing. The media, Vice President Kamala Harris and some Democratic lawmakers falsely accused the curriculum of teaching about the benefits of slavery.
Donalds said he approved of the curriculum and only took issue with the line of instruction reading, “how slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit.”
5. Joy Reid says Texas Gov. Greg Abbott is ‘bringing back lynching’
Reid argued in an Apr. 10 segment Abbott and other Republicans were returning the Jim Crow era practice after the governor ruled in favor of pardoning a man who shot another in an alleged act of self-defense. Thirty seven-year-old Daniel Perry, an army sergeant, was convicted of shooting 28-year-old Garrett Foster in Austin, Texas, in July of 2020 after having been overtaken by rioters.
“This feels like a pattern to me. You have Republicans in multiple states, including Florida, passing and pushing laws that will allow people to hit Black Lives Matter protesters or any protesters they like with their cars. This was after the Charlottesville murder by car of a white woman who was a Black Lives Matter protester. They seem to have gotten back into lynching, hanging, all sorts of other draconian 19th century fare.”
Abbott tweeted he directed the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles to recommend a pardon for Perry. He promised to pardon Perry if given the opportunity.
6. ‘Morning Joe’ hosts cover for Hunter Biden, claims every family struggles in his way
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough, the host of “Morning Joe,” attempted to cover for Hunter Biden by arguing all families have relatives who struggle with addiction. House Republican subpoenaed the president’s son to testify before the Oversight and Judiciary Committees behind closed doors regarding the Biden family’s business dealings, to which he defied.
“They still don’t understand that in that first debate when Donald Trump attacked Hunter Biden, attacked Joe Biden’s son, they don’t understand how much that backfired. There were conservative, hardcore right-wing, pro-Trump conservatives, whose articles I read and whose columns I read after that who were outraged that Donald Trump went after another man’s child,” Scarborough said.
His wife and co-host, Mika Brzezinski, also stood up for the younger Biden.
“You know, voters know Joe Biden and that’s the problem here,” co-host Mika Brzezinski said. “To your point, every family knows or struggles with mental health challenges or knows someone who has struggled and suffered as Hunter has and has done things that are against their core values. Every family is struggling in some way. Another thing voters are, many of them, parents. And when you go after Joe Biden’s son as you pointed out, the reason why it was such a turn off, is because not only was it his son, it was his remaining son. Like how sick can you be?”
7. Mika denied late term abortions exist, would not allow Chris Christie to finish a sentence
Brzezinksi visibly rolled her eyes when Republican presidential candidate Chris Christie said he is against blue states allowing abortions up until the moment of birth. The MSNBC host continuously interrupted him to say there is no such thing, though Christie cited the laws.
“It doesn’t happen. Less than one percent of abortions are performed after 21 weeks, and if there is a situation like that, it’s because there is a massive emergency. So I just think, of all the candidates, you’ve been the most honest about Trump and election integrity, but in this one respect, I have to call you out because you’re not being honest on the issue. We can debate abortion, but there isn’t abortion in the ninth month.”
“Mika, you’re the one who’s not being honest. I did not say there’s abortion in the ninth month. What I said was that the law in New Jersey and New York and Illinois and California permits it. And you can’t deny that that’s the truth because it is,” Christie said.
“It doesn’t happen, Chris,” Brzezinski said.
“So don’t call somebody a liar, don’t call —” Christie began.
“I’m not calling you a liar,” Brzezinski interrupted. “It’s not honest.”
“And by the way — no, no, Mika, nor did I say that it did,” Christie said.
“Let’s have an honest discussion about the issue,” the host interjected.
“Well, let’s have an honest discussion about the issue,” he said.
“But it doesn’t happen,” she said.
8. Andrea Mitchell flat out lies to two congressmen’s faces about misleading Hamas report
Mitchell blatantly lied to two congressmen as they criticized the media blindly followed the words of Hamas by blaming Israel for air-striking a hospital in the Gaza Strip. The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) and U.S. intelligence found a misfire by the Palestinian Islamic Jihad likely hit the hospital. (RELATED: MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell Blatantly Lies To Two Congressmen About American Media’s Coverage Of Hospital Bombing)
Mitchell falsely said most of the American media did not reiterate Hamas’ claims, despite it doing so on several occasions.
“Let me just say. Let me just say, congressman, not the NBC media,” Mitchell pushed back.
“I didn’t say — I did not say NBC, but CNN did,” Republican New York Rep. Mike Lawler said.
“Not most of the American media. We’re talking about media in the Arab world,” Mitchell said.
“CNN did, as well,” Lawler added. “And I will tell you, it is wrong. It is wrong. We need to — when you are in war, you better make sure you have your facts. We cannot have Baghdad Bobs running around promulgating these lies, especially members of Congress. So it is imperative, it does matter, facts matter here and we need to make sure that people understand Israel did not attack a hospital. That was a terrorist organization that did that.”
9. Joe and Mika deny they are biased toward Trump
Scarborough and Brzezinski denied being biased toward Trump despite repeatedly comparing him to fascist leaders Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini.
“The proper response is hearing it and saying, ‘How do we stop that?’ How do we defeat that? How do we shove the words of Hitler back into his throat, shove it down his throat and make him pay politically for this every day for the rest of his life? How do we take the fact that he brags about terminating Roe v. Wade and then tries to go back on that?’ That’s just unfair!” Scarborough began.
“I think the problem, I agree with everything that you said and what Mara said,” Brzezinski added. “The problem here is that this conversation somehow in certain circles and I would say among the Republican presidential candidates, Republican leaders in Congress and on networks like Fox News and Newsmax that say, ‘Oh, it’s so partisan. What they’re saying is so partisan.’ No, no, this is American. We’re all trying to talk about the same facts. We’re trying to adhere to the Constitution. We’re trying to follow the law and no, we don’t like insurrections or Adolf Hitler! It’s pretty basic!”
“If you watch this show, and I’ve noticed this several times and I haven’t said anything, but if you look at that screen, I can identify one, two, three people, who, before Donald Trump, probably never voted for a Democratic presidential candidate,” Scarborough added. “I don’t want to speak for you all, but certainly voted for more Republicans than Democrats. So this is not about Republican versus Democrat. This is not about liberal versus conservative. This is about people who love democracy versus people who, I guess, just don’t give a damn about American democracy. So this lie that’s on other networks that this is partisan and left-wing versus right-wing, this is progressive versus … it’s just a lie.”
10. MSNBC guest Eddie Glaude claims SCOTUS is bringing back segregated schools
Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude said the Supreme Court striking down race-based college admissions processes, also known as affirmative action, will be a return to segregated colleges.
“We will return to elite institutions, more specifically being the space for a particular population, predominately white and Asian students. We will begin to see a kind of segregated higher education landscape, and the irony of course … and I’ve anticipated this decision, but to hear it, I’m still trying to manage my emotions. But this was just one remedy, affirmative action, the only remedy, to the legacy of discrimination in admissions in American higher education. Only one remedy, so here they’ve taken it away,” Glaude complained during a June 29 segment.
So where we find ourselves, we’re gonna go back to those classes where you have one, two, three. We’re already having a small percentage of black and brown students in elite institutions. That percentage will get even smaller,” he continued.