Mehdi Hasan Splits from MSNBC Colleagues on Biden’s Oval Office Speech: ‘Messaging Is All Wrong’
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan diverged from his network colleagues on President Joe Biden’s Oval Office speech, Friday, which celebrated the passing of the debt ceiling deal as a bipartisan victory.
“My fellow Americans, when I ran for president I was told the days of bipartisanship were over, that Democrats and Republicans could no longer work together,” said Biden during his speech. “But I refused to believe that because America can never give into that way of thinking.”
He continued, “Look, the only way American democracy can function is through compromise and consensus, and that’s what I work to do as your president… to forge bipartisan agreement where it’s possible and where it’s needed.”
While most personalities at MSNBC praised Biden’s speech, Hasan criticized the president’s messaging in a Twitter post on Friday:
While it’s obviously great we are avoiding a default, this kind of Dem messaging is all wrong: it presents extremist House Republicans as some kind of agreeable moderates, and presents the outcome of a hostage negotiation as some sort of utopian bipartisan agreement.
MSNBC host Alex Wagner said on Friday that Biden’s speech was an attempt to “burnish his resume as protecter-in-chief.”
“This was a set of remarks that were, yes, about bipartisanship… yes, the case for the Biden economy, but also Biden as a leader. Someone who cares about the American people,” she said, adding:
At one point in the set of remarks from the speech in the Oval, Biden says, ‘Our teams were able to get along. Both sides operated in good faith, both sides kept their word.’ That is a study in contrast of course to Trump but it is something you have not heard from a president in a long time.
I mean, President Obama would not have necessarily said that about Republicans in Congress who were dead set on not negotiating with him, but to have the president of the United States be able to say that from the Oval Office, I think for the people again who are not following the ins and outs of Washington and just want things to be normal, to hear a president say that means a lot to them.
The 11th Hour host Stephanie Ruhle, meanwhile, argued, “I would say the most important thing that he said was not every side got what they wanted, but America got what it needed, right? This shouldn’t be a giant achievement. We should never be in a scenario where the United States could default.”
“There’s a zillion terrible things we can say about Kevin McCarthy,” she said, “but this thing did get over the line and America needed that.”
In the same segment, The Last Word host Lawrence O’Donnell also praised Biden’s bipartisan message:
This sentence that we heard from the president: “I commend Speaker McCarthy.” Just imagine the four years of the Trump presidency. Imagine a sentence that begins with “I commend Speaker…” It’s inconceivable, and that line I think to the average viewer of this is the most important line, because you’re either with Biden on these policies before he opens his mouth or halfway with him on these policies before he opens his mouth, or you’re not.
But on human decency, there is no comparison between the frontrunner for the Republican nomination and the person who just spoke, who will be the Democratic nominee. That’s the kind of language that that voter in the middle likes to hear, has lived with most of their lives with previous presidents, and it’s back. That basic human decency was back in the heart of that message.
Several days prior, O’Donnell celebrated the passing of the debt ceiling bill as “a win for Democrats” and said McCarthy “gave up.”
“More Democrats supported this bill than Republicans because this was a win for Democrats. That’s what it was,” he said about the deal, which was passed by a majority of House Republicans and Democrats.
Watch above via MSNBC.
