MSNBC's top primetime anchors and hosts made numerous eyebrow-raising remarks during their coverage of the Republican National Convention, including likening recovery from a mild COVID-19 case to surviving an attempted assassination.
On Monday, the network sidelined "Morning Joe" before returning to regular programming, denying any reports that it was because of concerns that the pro-Biden program may say something insensitive on the heels of the Trump shooting in Pennsylvania. But it was the network's rabidly left-wing primetime hosts who made several incendiary comments in their coverage this week.
MSNBC host Alex Wagner argued that the GOP's pick for vice president, JD Vance, dropped "Easter eggs of White nationalism" by saying during his speech on Wednesday that he wanted to be buried in his family's plot in Kentucky.
"I just think the construction of this notion reveals a lot about someone who fundamentally believes in the supremacy of whiteness and masculinity, and it’s couched in a sort of halcyon, you know, revisitation of his roots, but it is actually really revealing about what he thinks matters and who America is, and that America is a place for people with his shared Western background," Wagner said.
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MSNBC's Joy Reid, who has questioned whether Trump was actually shot with a bullet at his rally on Saturday, argued on Wednesday that President Biden getting COVID-19 and recovering was "the same thing" as Trump surviving an assassination attempt.
"This current President of the United States is 81 years old and has COVID, should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing? That he’s strong enough – older than Trump – to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So, if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn't that exactly the same?" Reid said.
She alluded to the questions surrounding Trump's injuries during the discussion as well, saying Trump had gotten a "photo op" out of nearly being murdered.
"These two men are both elderly. Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given nine seconds to take an iconic photo op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation, we'll figure that out one day," Reid said.
The far-left host also suggested that Trump couldn't avoid the consequences of his own rhetoric following the assassination attempt.
"The idea of political violence that we've been nursing really since then, is so dangerous," she said. "It's so dangerous that you cannot avoid the consequences of it, even if you're one of the people promoting it."
MSNBC host Rachel Maddow took issue with Vance's love for "Lord of the Rings," and seemed to connect the series to the "far right."
"Like his mentor, like Peter Thiel, who had given him all his jobs in the world, Mr. Vance also when he founded his own venture capital firm with help from Peter Thiel, named it after a Lord of the Rings thing. He called it Narya, N-A-R-Y-A, which you can remember because it’s Aryan, but you move the n to the front," Maddow said. "Apparently, that word has something to do with elves and rings from the Lord of the Rings series, I don’t know."
At another point this week, MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace became visibly frustrated over the way Biden had answered a question from NBC's Lester Holt about "bullseye" rhetoric directed at Trump.
"There was one way to answer that question, and it was, ‘Lester, should I use the word bullseye or crosshair? No, but the FBI director that Donald Trump selected, his name is Christopher Wray, and he testified under oath before Congress that the greatest threat to this country is no longer foreign terrorism. It's domestic violent extremism,'" Wallace said, growing angry as she spoke.
"Inside that threat, the biggest bucket by far is right-wing domestic violent extremism, so go talk to them," she snapped while pointing her finger.
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MSNBC host Michael Steele was also accused of pushing "conspiracy theories" this week in questioning whether Trump's ear was hit by a bullet.
"A person lost their life, two have been severely injured, and yet we’ve not received a medical report from the hospital, nor have we received a medical report from the campaign, or from the Trump organization about the extent of the damage to his ear," Steele said.
The series of controversial remarks comes on the heels of a bizarre story that engulfed the network on Monday.
The hosts of "Morning Joe" were told on Sunday, according to host Joe Scarborough, that their show would be off the air Monday, since there would be a single news feed on all NBC platforms, including MSNBC, following the assassination attempt against Trump. However, their show wound up being the only one that was supplanted, and MSNBC returned to regular programming afterward, leaving the show's hosts and production team upset.
A network spokesperson denied a CNN report that the show was held off the air on Monday for fear of the anti-Trump show making any controversial remarks. It returned to the air on Tuesday, where Scarborough publicly criticized the network for its decision-making.
"We were very surprised," Scarborough said. "We were very disappointed. And if we had known that there wasn’t going to be the one news feed from NBC News across all NBC News channels, we obviously would have been in yesterday morning."
Fox News' Brian Flood and David Rutz contributed to this report.
