Despite calls on the left and right for the temperature to be dialed down following the assassination attempt against former President Trump, MSNBC hosts continued making inflammatory remarks during their coverage of the Republican National Convention this week.
Primetime hosts at the liberal network accused candidates of being secret racists and even gave a platform to conspiracy theories questioning if Trump was actually shot.
Here are five of the most eyebrow-raising remarks by MSNBC primetime hosts covering the RNC this past week.
Alex Wagner: JD Vance is a secret White nationalist, despite being married to an Indian woman
Republican vice presidential candidate Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio, gestures to Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump during the Republican National Convention Thursday, July 18, 2024, in Milwaukee. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)
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MSNBC host Alex Wagner attracted headlines after she claimed that Trump’s pick for vice president, JD Vance, dropped “Easter eggs of White nationalism” by saying during his RNC speech 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.
Joy Reid: Getting better from COVID is like surviving getting shot
MSNBC’s Joy Reid, who 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 “exactly 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 asked.
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Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is moved from the stage at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
Reid also seemed to entertain far-left theories casting doubt on the former president’s injuries.
“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 liberal host also suggested Trump was facing the “consequences” of his own “dangerous” rhetoric.
“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.”
Joy Reid questioned Donald Trump’s injuries on Wednesday in a post on Threads. ((Photo by Arturo Holmes/Getty Images for ESSENCE)/Screenshot/Threads)
Michael Steele: Was Trump actually shot?
MSNBC host Michael Steele was similarly 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.
“If he was shot by a high-caliber bullet, there should probably be very little ear there,” he continued. “And so, we’d like to know that. Is there cosmetic surgery involved? What is the prognosis for recovery? Were there stitches? What is the extent and nature of the damage to his ear? Was it caused by a bullet, as opposed to, as some reports … saying it was actually shards of glass from the teleprompter?”
Rachel Maddow: Liking ‘Lord of the Rings’ is racist?
Like her colleague Alex Wagner, MSNBC host Rachel Maddow had her own unusual take on JD Vance. Maddow drew a connection between the senator’s interest in “The Lord of the Rings” to the “far-right.”
“‘Lord of the Rings’ is a sort of favorite cosmos for naming things and cultural references for a lot of far-right and alt-right figures, both in Europe and the United States. Peter Thiel names all these things after Tolkien figures in places like his company Palantir, for example,” Maddow said.
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“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,” Maddow said. “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,” she continued.
Ian McKellen, seen here in a still from “The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring,” played Gandalf opposite Elijah Wood’s Frodo. (New Line/WireImage/Getty Images)
“Apparently, that word has something to do with elves and rings from the Lord of the Rings series, I don’t know.”
Nicolle Wallace: ‘Right-wing’ extremism is the real threat
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.
MSNBC host Nicolle Wallace appeared flustered while discussing President Biden’s NBC interview with Lester Holt. (MSNBC/Screenshot/Graeme Sloan/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
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The eyebrow-raising comments came as the liberal network found itself at the center of other controversies this week.
A New York Times report revealed MSNBC was projecting a live feed of the GOP convention as a background for several of its primetime shows, rather than reporting live from the event. MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, Nicolle Wallace, Jen Psaki, Joy Reid and other MSNBC anchors were not inside the convention hall or even in the same city, according to the report.
An MSNBC spokesman told the Times that at “the top of every broadcast, hosts identify themselves as being in New York or at MSNBC headquarters.” But critics say the live video feed of a bustling convention behind them sends a different impression to viewers tuning in throughout the night.
Still, the move drew mockery from CNN anchor Jake Tapper and others this week.
“We are here live, as opposed to some other networks that just have a big LED, who shall remain nameless,” Tapper said during an interview with Florida Republican Sen. Marco Rubio.
The network also drew backlash from its own anchors after it pulled “Morning Joe” off the air on Monday in the aftermath of the assassination attempt against Trump two days prior.
Fox News’ Yael Halon contributed to this report.
