WEBVTT - "Morning Joe" Mika Just Keeps Making It Worse 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:03.360 One of the questions that a lot of people are 0:00:03.400 --> 0:00:07.360 struggling with in America right now is how how did 0:00:07.400 --> 0:00:10.920 it happen that Donald Trump was re elected to the 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.600 American presidency. There's a lot of answers to the question. 0:00:15.080 --> 0:00:18.919 There's some simple ones, some big ones. But one of 0:00:18.960 --> 0:00:23.239 the answers, and one of the causes is the absolute 0:00:23.400 --> 0:00:31.240 brokenness cynicism of America's corporate access media model. This is 0:00:31.280 --> 0:00:37.040 the warning now, in a normal time, silliness attached to 0:00:37.159 --> 0:00:43.680 journalism is completely harmless. Fatuousness and fecklessness are no big deal. 0:00:44.159 --> 0:00:48.400 Obviously at some level. If you're the anchor person making 0:00:48.520 --> 0:00:52.880 ten million dollars a year hosting four hours of morning television, 0:00:53.240 --> 0:00:57.440 you live in a rarefied space. You are on top 0:00:57.760 --> 0:01:01.400 of the pyramid. And what comes with that is a 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:05.280 lot of people who flatter you. When you're on top, 0:01:05.840 --> 0:01:10.440 that flattery can have a disorienting effect. It can make 0:01:10.520 --> 0:01:16.360 you diluted and disoriented. Now, Mika Brazinski is not a 0:01:16.400 --> 0:01:21.399 bad person. Mika Brazinski is a television presenter. She's not 0:01:21.480 --> 0:01:26.000 a diplomat, she's not an elected official, she doesn't hold 0:01:26.120 --> 0:01:32.880 a position in the society. That's better More enlightened or 0:01:33.040 --> 0:01:38.040 wiser than anybody else. She is covering on a show 0:01:38.520 --> 0:01:42.959 which her husband incepted and founded, in which she became 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.080 the co host many many years ago. And this show, 0:01:47.480 --> 0:01:51.720 which I've been on many times, was fresh and exciting 0:01:52.160 --> 0:01:56.960 and completely different, and people liked it, and the conversations 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:02.160 that were had were utterly optive, positional to all of 0:02:02.200 --> 0:02:07.040 the crapola that John Stewart confronted on shows like Crossfire 0:02:07.520 --> 0:02:10.639 when he went on and put a finger in Tucker 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.000 Carlson's face and told him how bad he was for 0:02:14.080 --> 0:02:18.320 the country. Mourning Joe isn't bad for the country until 0:02:18.360 --> 0:02:23.280 it was. Morning Joe is one of the reasons Donald 0:02:23.360 --> 0:02:26.800 Trump sits in the White House full stop. 0:02:27.200 --> 0:02:28.320 It's indisputable. 0:02:28.720 --> 0:02:32.680 And the reason for that is is because the prime 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:37.880 directive of the Mourning Joe Show is not to explain 0:02:38.000 --> 0:02:42.480 things to its audience. It's not to explicate the danger 0:02:43.120 --> 0:02:47.679 and to confront it. It's to hold a position no 0:02:47.800 --> 0:02:52.760 matter what, at all costs that is proximate to power. 0:02:53.120 --> 0:02:57.520 And Mika Brazinski talks about this in her podcast with 0:02:57.680 --> 0:03:01.840 Joanna Coles and Samantha of The Daily Beast. 0:03:02.440 --> 0:03:06.440 The freedom to have the debate and the requirement that 0:03:06.520 --> 0:03:09.560 it is civil was the key, and so my dad 0:03:09.600 --> 0:03:14.920 and mom would have often many ambassadors, senators, world leaders. 0:03:14.960 --> 0:03:19.600 We had Deng Choo ping, the leader of China to 0:03:19.720 --> 0:03:23.480 dinner at our house during the normalizations of relations with China. 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.240 My father said, let's not do his date dinner at 0:03:26.240 --> 0:03:28.880 the White House. Let's do it at our farmhouse in McLean. 0:03:29.040 --> 0:03:30.920 And let me tell you something. There were so many 0:03:30.919 --> 0:03:33.400 disasters that night because we were all stressed out. But 0:03:33.440 --> 0:03:35.720 it went really well, except for the part where I 0:03:35.760 --> 0:03:39.760 spelled caviare on him and where we didn't close the 0:03:39.800 --> 0:03:43.960 flu of the fireplace and house Scott's like. We were 0:03:44.000 --> 0:03:47.760 all so nervous. But it was an incredibly memorable historic 0:03:47.880 --> 0:03:51.600 experience and it was the greatest example actually, I guess 0:03:51.840 --> 0:03:54.000 of what it means to talk. 0:03:54.840 --> 0:03:55.880 All of that is great. 0:03:56.240 --> 0:03:59.920 They're nice experiences, but it doesn't have anything to do 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:05.360 with what Mika Brazinski and Joe Scarborough were called to do, 0:04:05.720 --> 0:04:10.400 which is to tell the truth when telling the truth 0:04:10.840 --> 0:04:16.960 has consequences. Instead, what they did is flatter power and 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:22.320 the ego of Joe Biden. Let's watch this clip. It's 0:04:22.400 --> 0:04:27.080 one of two. They tell you everything that's broken about 0:04:27.080 --> 0:04:33.440 the American news media. It's hypocrisy, it's abject dishonesty, and 0:04:33.520 --> 0:04:41.320 its utter, absolute sneering condescension. First, let's watch Joe lie 0:04:41.440 --> 0:04:44.880 to the country before telling the American people. 0:04:45.520 --> 0:04:49.040 You start your tape right now, because I'm about to 0:04:49.080 --> 0:04:52.520 tell you the truth, and FU if you can't handle 0:04:52.560 --> 0:05:01.120 the truth. This version of Biden, intellectually and a is 0:05:01.160 --> 0:05:04.720 the best Biden ever, not a close second. And I've 0:05:04.839 --> 0:05:07.480 known him for years. The Brazenskis have known him for 0:05:07.520 --> 0:05:11.200 fifty years. If it weren't the truth, I wouldn't say it. 0:05:12.040 --> 0:05:15.480 Next, let's watch Don Lemon and his pack. 0:05:16.000 --> 0:05:18.440 He also knows deep in his heart that Donald Trump 0:05:18.440 --> 0:05:19.960 couldn't find you crane on a map if you had 0:05:19.960 --> 0:05:22.400 the letter you and a picture of an actual physical 0:05:22.480 --> 0:05:25.400 crane next to it. He knows that this is, you know, 0:05:25.640 --> 0:05:29.719 an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so 0:05:30.200 --> 0:05:33.039 that's partly him playing to their base and playing to 0:05:33.080 --> 0:05:37.240 their audience. You know, the credulous boomer rube demo that 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:41.279 backs Donald Trump, that wants to think that that that 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:42.400 Donald Trump's. 0:05:42.040 --> 0:05:45.160 A smart one in there. Y'all will lead us for them. 0:05:46.200 --> 0:05:48.800 You will lead us with your geography and your maps 0:05:49.200 --> 0:05:53.080 and your spelling, even though my math. You're reading, yeah, 0:05:53.120 --> 0:05:57.400 you're reading. You know your geography. Know in other countries 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.839 lines on the map, only they me lad us know 0:06:04.839 --> 0:06:05.800 where Ukraine is. 0:06:06.839 --> 0:06:10.560 It's appalling, it's dishonest, and it's why we have Trump. 0:06:10.800 --> 0:06:13.440 We don't need to talk about it much. It's staring 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:14.320 us in the face. 0:06:14.720 --> 0:06:15.040 Now. 0:06:15.520 --> 0:06:19.440 Mika Brazinski is an accomplished woman. There is no question 0:06:19.520 --> 0:06:23.880 about that. That comes from an accomplished family with accomplished siblings, 0:06:24.360 --> 0:06:28.680 married to an accomplished man, surrounded by accomplished people. But 0:06:29.040 --> 0:06:32.120 in order to understand what it is that I'm going 0:06:32.200 --> 0:06:35.880 to talk about, you have to appreciate something that happens 0:06:36.279 --> 0:06:39.080 at the beginning of the podcast interview. 0:06:39.520 --> 0:06:42.880 So we joined now by our beast of the week, 0:06:43.200 --> 0:06:45.440 and you know her as the co host of Morning 0:06:45.560 --> 0:06:49.400 Joe on MSNBC, where her fresh political takes wake you 0:06:49.520 --> 0:06:53.400 up faster than that first cup of coffee. Mika Brazinski, 0:06:54.240 --> 0:06:57.480 Mika who is Anything but Meek, is a fierce advocate 0:06:57.520 --> 0:07:01.039 for women's empowerment, a best selling author, and the visionary 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:03.160 behind the Know Your Value initiative. 0:07:04.040 --> 0:07:08.320 Is Mika Brazinski a visionary. Joanna Coles thinks so, But 0:07:08.440 --> 0:07:13.400 does that come from an objective observation or are you 0:07:13.520 --> 0:07:19.160 witnessing a transaction, a flattering of a powerful person powerful 0:07:19.240 --> 0:07:23.400 clique by another powerful person in a powerful clique that 0:07:23.520 --> 0:07:27.720 lived close to each other and practice something that they 0:07:27.840 --> 0:07:33.520 call that I don't recognize as journalists. Joanna Coles, for example, 0:07:34.120 --> 0:07:37.800 when she took over The Daily Beast in a strategy 0:07:37.920 --> 0:07:42.000 to reinvigorate, it suggested that The Daily Beast hire a 0:07:42.080 --> 0:07:47.760 full time correspondent to cover the fabulousness of Jeff Bezos 0:07:47.840 --> 0:07:53.360 his fiance Lauren Sanchez. This matters because Jeff Bezos, the 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.200 second richest guy in the world, was so scared shitless 0:07:57.280 --> 0:08:02.480 that he intervened into the Washington Post editorial process to 0:08:02.720 --> 0:08:09.520 precapitulate to Donald Trump in advance to protect his larger interests. 0:08:09.840 --> 0:08:14.000 The issue is very simple. There are only a couple 0:08:14.160 --> 0:08:18.720 of possibilities. It is either a the case that Joe 0:08:18.760 --> 0:08:24.320 Scarborough and Mika Brazinski called Donald Trump hitler and compared 0:08:24.720 --> 0:08:28.160 Maga to the Third Reich over and over and over again, 0:08:28.440 --> 0:08:34.360 because they're frauds who thought that inciting and dividing by 0:08:34.400 --> 0:08:38.559 comparing him to Hitler would be good for them, while 0:08:38.600 --> 0:08:41.040 not meaning it, not a word of it. If they 0:08:41.120 --> 0:08:47.120 did that, it has destroyed their credibility. Or alternatively, Mika 0:08:47.160 --> 0:08:51.840 and Joe believe that Donald Trump is Hitler, evaluated him 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:56.000 as a fascist, and in the immediate aftermath of the election, 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.360 instead of figuring out how to meet the moment having 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:04.199 a philosophy of truth telling about how they will explain 0:09:04.320 --> 0:09:09.000 what is happening, contextualize it, bring guests on to help 0:09:09.040 --> 0:09:13.800 their audience comprehend it, what they did was fashion a 0:09:13.880 --> 0:09:19.079 capitulation campaign and went tomorrow a lago to meet with Trump, 0:09:19.520 --> 0:09:24.520 not to get insight, not to report. There's no discernible 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.400 public benefit from the meeting whatsoever, in any form or 0:09:28.440 --> 0:09:32.359 fashion that anybody anywhere on the planet Earth can articulate. 0:09:32.640 --> 0:09:37.120 The purpose of the meeting was because Mika and Joe 0:09:37.559 --> 0:09:43.839 are afraid, which was reported by Dylan Buyers accurately, precisely, 0:09:44.200 --> 0:09:49.880 and devastatingly. Let's watch Mika say that the criticism of 0:09:50.000 --> 0:09:53.600 all of this is because we're afraid. 0:09:54.120 --> 0:09:56.160 I was trying to think through it, and I just 0:09:56.240 --> 0:10:00.040 think everyone is so scared. People, whether they're in the 0:10:00.120 --> 0:10:05.160 media or they are citizens of this great country. I 0:10:05.200 --> 0:10:12.240 think everybody is feeling scared, disoriented, fearful of the future. 0:10:12.920 --> 0:10:16.960 And I think I think, just for a quick moment, 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:19.640 I might be like the punching bag for that, but 0:10:20.000 --> 0:10:22.400 I'd like to believe we're going to get through this. 0:10:23.559 --> 0:10:27.520 We are at the hour of death for corporate media 0:10:27.920 --> 0:10:32.680 because running a newsroom speaking out against Trump in this 0:10:32.840 --> 0:10:38.840 moment is something that's going to require stamina, guts, and fortitude. 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.880 That's not what you get at morning Joel. Now, it's 0:10:42.920 --> 0:10:46.960 interesting to watch Mika Brazinski in this interview, and I 0:10:47.000 --> 0:10:51.040 say this to somebody who has prepared presidents, prime ministers, 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:58.280 the greatest quarterbacks of all time, senators, congressmen, ambassadors, CEOs, 0:10:58.679 --> 0:11:02.600 you name it for all manner of interviews. Now, at 0:11:02.640 --> 0:11:06.720 the beginning of this, Mika says, I don't have much 0:11:06.840 --> 0:11:13.079 to say before going on an extended filibuster. That justifies 0:11:13.640 --> 0:11:16.439 the rationale for the capitulation. 0:11:17.200 --> 0:11:20.480 It's my job to interview and talk to people I 0:11:20.559 --> 0:11:23.920 disagree with, feel threatened by, or who have hurt my 0:11:24.040 --> 0:11:27.000 feelings in some way. So there's how I do it. 0:11:27.120 --> 0:11:29.960 I do my job. I mean, do I really not 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:33.320 go in there? Because he tweeted about me bleeding badly 0:11:33.360 --> 0:11:36.600 from a facelift at mar A Lago. I don't know 0:11:37.000 --> 0:11:39.200 eight nine years ago. I mean, we haven't talked in 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:43.360 seven years, and I will say that's a problem too. 0:11:43.920 --> 0:11:47.720 So I'm worried about myself and how I conduct myself 0:11:47.840 --> 0:11:51.640 in this media universe that we're in, taking stock of 0:11:52.040 --> 0:11:54.120 everything that has happened. I don't regret anything I've said 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:56.360 during the campaign, and I stand by it, but I'm 0:11:56.360 --> 0:11:59.600 also looking at how to do things differently. And I 0:11:59.600 --> 0:12:05.280 would never turned down an opportunity to gain insider information never. 0:12:06.240 --> 0:12:11.000 So how I handle mean tweets or the personal stuff 0:12:11.160 --> 0:12:13.720 is that that's just not something I'm supposed to worry about. 0:12:13.760 --> 0:12:15.920 That's my job. If I let not get in the 0:12:15.920 --> 0:12:17.640 way of me doing my job. I don't think my 0:12:17.720 --> 0:12:19.080 viewers would appreciate that. 0:12:20.080 --> 0:12:23.600 Mika went on a show and was celebrated as being 0:12:23.640 --> 0:12:28.000 a journalist by people who call themselves journalists, not Samantha 0:12:28.040 --> 0:12:29.880 Bee but Joanna Calls. 0:12:30.160 --> 0:12:31.240 And they'd didn't. 0:12:30.880 --> 0:12:35.960 Talk about, for example, the Secretary of Defense nominee Pete Hagsath, 0:12:36.080 --> 0:12:40.560 who's an accused rapist. Instead, they talked about the issue 0:12:41.080 --> 0:12:45.720 that matters to them, which is them not you. The 0:12:46.040 --> 0:12:52.280 justifications for the meeting fall flat because the meeting wasn't 0:12:52.320 --> 0:12:58.040 about insight. It was about as covering, which meant selling 0:12:58.080 --> 0:12:59.559 out an audience. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:02.040 It depends on those. 0:13:01.800 --> 0:13:05.599 Two people that they came to trust until it imploded, 0:13:05.920 --> 0:13:08.559 that they would tell them what was happening, and those 0:13:08.600 --> 0:13:12.680 two gave that away in this election cycle. And it's 0:13:12.760 --> 0:13:16.520 really sad and it's really pathetic to watch. But now 0:13:16.559 --> 0:13:19.840 that it happened, it has to be called out because 0:13:19.880 --> 0:13:23.439 pretending that that is the news in a moment when 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:28.000 there's an information crisis and somebody is trying to obliterate 0:13:28.040 --> 0:13:31.720 the checks and balances, the people who control so much 0:13:31.760 --> 0:13:36.000 of the conversation space on morning television don't get an 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:39.959 allowance to suddenly, now in their self interest, say now 0:13:40.000 --> 0:13:43.600 we all have to come together. Not when he's appointing 0:13:43.679 --> 0:13:47.960 Christy Nome to Homeland Security, Not when he's appointing a 0:13:48.080 --> 0:13:53.680 Katari registered agent to be Attorney General. After Pensacola, Prince 0:13:53.720 --> 0:13:58.520 Andrew flamed out. This moment Mika's right about is an 0:13:58.600 --> 0:14:01.760 urgent one. In Late Night eineteen nineties, a few years 0:14:01.800 --> 0:14:05.599 before nine to eleven, John Miller, now a CNN analyst, 0:14:05.880 --> 0:14:09.440 former New York City Deputy Police commissioner but then a 0:14:09.520 --> 0:14:13.320 journalist with ABC News traveled to the Hindu Kush in 0:14:13.360 --> 0:14:17.240 Afghanistan to interview Osama bin Lauden. He was living in 0:14:17.280 --> 0:14:20.160 a cave. He had declared war on the United States. 0:14:20.440 --> 0:14:24.160 That journey was long, it was risky, and it was dangerous. 0:14:24.520 --> 0:14:27.440 Osama bin Laden was an evil man, a killer, but 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:30.160 he deserved an interview, and he deserved one before he 0:14:30.200 --> 0:14:33.000 got shot in the head by Navy seal team. If 0:14:33.040 --> 0:14:35.520 a journalist could have found him, it could have gotten 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.120 to him. Good for them. That's not what happened in 0:14:38.160 --> 0:14:41.280 mare A Lago. It wasn't an interview. It wasn't about 0:14:41.320 --> 0:14:44.520 telling you what's going on. It was about vanity. In 0:14:44.640 --> 0:14:48.720 vanity and self interest is crippling the country and it 0:14:48.760 --> 0:14:52.200 made it possible for Donald Trump to take power, and 0:14:52.280 --> 0:14:56.560 in order to take it back from him, this era, 0:14:56.960 --> 0:15:03.800 a fatuousness of effecklessness where people will debase themselves and 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:06.760 call it courage, must end. 0:15:07.120 --> 0:15:07.680 It must. 0:15:08.000 --> 0:15:12.920 The news business is vital in a democracy. If people 0:15:13.120 --> 0:15:17.920 cannot know, cannot tell what's real and what's not, what's 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:22.120 dangerous and what's not because everything that they're exposed to 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:26.840 is performative bullshittery, and no one means anything. We get 0:15:26.880 --> 0:15:30.880 to where we're at. The kaboom is the sound of 0:15:30.960 --> 0:15:36.800 the implosion of the connections between institutions and leaders and 0:15:36.880 --> 0:15:43.480 people and the American people regarding trust. Joe and Mika 0:15:43.760 --> 0:15:47.080 broke the trust and they know it, and the show 0:15:47.120 --> 0:15:50.400 won't make it. And that's too bad, because once upon 0:15:50.480 --> 0:15:53.640 a time it was fresh. It was good, It was invigorating, 0:15:53.960 --> 0:15:58.560 and it made politics understandable, explicable, brought people together, and 0:15:58.640 --> 0:16:02.920 it was good. Wasn't because and this is the truth, 0:16:03.240 --> 0:16:07.320 if you grow up in the sunlight where you sat 0:16:07.360 --> 0:16:11.360 at a table as a kid and you spilled caviar 0:16:11.840 --> 0:16:16.240 on Deang Shaoping, then the idea that you're not at 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:20.800 the center of a world revolving around you is anethma 0:16:20.960 --> 0:16:23.680 and the worst thing that could happen. It's not that 0:16:23.800 --> 0:16:26.920 Hitler became president. It's that you didn't have a seated 0:16:26.960 --> 0:16:30.280 Hitler's table. And I think it's despicable. And I think 0:16:30.520 --> 0:16:34.320 the attack on the motives of critics who have pointed 0:16:34.360 --> 0:16:38.200 out the hypocrisy is absurd. I think the audience thinks 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.720 it's absurd. I think the entire business model is absurd, 0:16:42.080 --> 0:16:44.640 and the tragedy of it is that the people with 0:16:44.840 --> 0:16:49.080 conviction and principal at NBC, like Rachel Maddow, like Nicole Wallace, 0:16:49.280 --> 0:16:53.760 all of them are degraded by the debasements that have 0:16:53.880 --> 0:16:58.040 been imposed on them by colleagues who have the gall 0:16:58.240 --> 0:17:01.520 to say they get it for us, which they most 0:17:01.600 --> 0:17:02.640 certainly did not. 0:17:04.560 --> 0:17:05.520 I'm Steve Schmidt. 0:17:05.720 --> 0:17:07.920 This is the warning and I invite you to join. 0:17:08.040 --> 0:17:12.280 Subscribe on our substack, on our YouTube channel, follow us. 0:17:12.560 --> 0:17:17.680 Welcome to the community.