Stunned MSNBC Hosts Go OFF On Republican’s ‘Racist Condescending’ And ‘Insulting’ Questioning at Hearing
Morning Joe co-host Mika Brzezinski and Symone host Symone Sanders-Townsend torched a GOP senator for what they called “racist” questioning of a witness during a hearing.
Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) got more than he bargained for as he questioned a witness on Tuesday at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on gun violence.
On Thursday morning’s edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Mika played the exchange, then she and Symone just bulldozed Kennedy over the text and subtext of his remarks, and knocked down their factual basis:
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You think that Chicago has become America’s largest outdoor shooting range. Do you think it’s because of Chicago citizens who have no criminal record but but who have a, lawfully a gun in their home for protection, or perhaps for hunting? Or do you think it’s because of a finite group of criminals who have rap sheets as long as King Kong’s arm?
DR. MEGAN RANNEY: So Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri actually have higher firearm death rates. Obviously, there is certainly…
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: What about Chicago?
DR. MEGAN RANNEY: So I don’t live in Chicago. It’s not my primary area of research.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: You don’t have an opinion on that?
DR. MEGAN RANNEY: I think there’s easy access to firearms compared with, combined with environmental conditions. Lack of great education. There are actually been studies showing that when you green vacant lots and repair abandoned buildings in urban neighborhoods, you see decreases in gunshots and violence as well as in stress and depression in the neighborhoods around them.
SEN. JOHN KENNEDY: No disrespect, doc, but that sounds a lot like word salad to me.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: You want to talk about word salad?
SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND: It’s giving racism Mika.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: That was racist, elitist, so condescending!
SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND: And ill-informed.
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Ill-informed and insulting. Let’s talk about the numbers the doctor was referring to. Oh, I can’t believe this man! It’s so it’s repulsive, actually. What he just did, what we just showed you.
According to the data from the CDC, nine of the ten states with the highest gun death rates in 2021 voted for Trump in the last election. That includes the senator’s home state of Louisiana, which comes in at number two. Illinois ranked 26th.
And when you compare city metrics, Chicago is still statistically safer than major cities in the South. Chicago had a firearm homicide rate of 23.3 deaths per 100,000 residents, according to the city’s police department. For context, St Louis, Missouri had the highest rate in the nation with 76.4 deaths per 100,000. New Orleans had a death rate of 65.3 deaths. I don’t know what you can add, but I’d love to hear it. Symone, I don’t even know what to. I don’t ever think I can interview this senator again without asking him about that and and asking him to apologize to the American people for what he did in that question.
SYMONE SANDERS-TOWNSEND: Yeah, I’m very confused about the rap sheet, because I don’t know if he is insinuating because Chicago is a city that many people associate with being majority African-American, majority black, that the most that the majority of the people in the city have rap sheets, i.e. black people do crime. I just I really I can’t believe this happening on the floor of the United States Congress. The Senate nonetheless, supposed to be the greatest deliberative body in this country.
Watch above via MSNBC’s Morning Joe.
