GOPer Nicolle Wallace Grills Carney on Syria Messaging: ‘The Public’s Not Stupid’
On Morning Joe Tuesday morning, former John McCain campaign aide Nicolle Wallace pressed White House Press Secretary Jay Carney about the Obama administration’s troubled messaging on Syria, dismissing his answer that the situation was “complicated” by accusing him of talking to the public as if they were stupid.
After offering Carney “infinite sympathy” for press agents, Wallace asked, “My question for you right now is: can you at least understand that the perception of a message problem has contributed to the problems that you have in mustering the congressional votes, in rallying the public around you, to do simply what the president said he wanted to do? The president said he wanted to strike Syria if they crossed the president’s red line. Do you understand why we all feel like there’s a message problem?”
“Well, I understand that this is complicated business,” Carney said, “and that for most Americans—”
“Wait,” Wallace interrupted. “Let me just stop, because that’s what you say when you think people are stupid, and the public’s not stupid. We get complicated. We get nuance. Actually, people voted two times for a president who is nuanced on these issues. So he’s got a lot of running room there. But he has been downright contradictory. Do you at least accept responsibility for trying to improve the message coming out of the administration?”
“Absolutely,” Carney replied. “I’m out here today, we’re out here every day. The president gave six interviews yesterday. He’ll speak to the American people tonight…He understands clearly that both members of Congress, as representatives of the American people, and the American people themselves, are wary of any engagement militarily in the Middle East again, anywhere in the world, in fact, given what we’ve been through. So I accept that we need to get out there and make the case and make clear why this is important, why there is a threat in the long term to the United States, to our troops in the future, if we and the rest of the world say it’s okay for a dictator to gas his own people.”
Watch the full clip below, via MSNBC:
[Image via screengrab]
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