Morning Joe Crew Warn DC Crash Brings ‘Sharp Focus’ On ‘Competence’ Of Cabinet Picks: ‘It’s Not Partisan to Question Experience’
The Morning Joe crew warned that “moments” like the Washington DC aircraft collision bring “sharp focus” on the “competence” of cabinet nominees as confirmation hearings are set to continue.
The commentary came on Thursday amid coverage of the crash between a commercial jet flying from Kansas and a US Army Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River, which happened on Wednesday night.
As reporting moved on to the pending confirmation hearings set for Thursday morning – including President Donald Trump’s picks for national intelligence director, Tulsi Gabbard and FBI director, Kash Patel – the Morning Joe team noted that the tragedy underlined “how important it is to have your administration staffed with good people, experts who can step up in a time of crisis.”
MSNBC’s Way To Early host Ali Vitali, appearing as a guest, remarked that “to question the experience” of the nominees is not “partisan” but in everyone’s interests.
To me, it brings into focus why these confirmation hearings are important in the first place. One of the common threads between all of these nominees has been the question, the correct one: are they qualified to serve in these highest positions in government? You have more of these confirmation hearings happening today.
Vitali noted that Senator Jerry Moran (R-KS) sits on the committee that will host Gabbard’s hearing and his close proximity to the collision incident, having lobbied for that exact flight route from his home state.
Jerry Moran happens to sit on the Intel committee, among others. He’s one of the senators who we played from Kansas, who talked about the fact that he lobbied for this exact flight from Wichita to D.C. It again speaks to the way that members of congress and others in Washington use DCA, because it’s so close and because it’s so convenient.
But it again brings into sharp focus that it’s not partisan to question experience in moments like this. It also underscores how important a transition is. There are all of these mechanisms in place to make sure that the incoming administration has all of the information that they need to hit the ground running, and this is an exact example of why you would want to know all of that information, so that on day one.
If you are the transportation secretary, as Sean Duffy is, you can come in and have a little bit of expertise about an otherwise unfamiliar place that you are walking into. And I think it’s really important for us to keep that in mind that as we go through these confirmation hearings, these are the exact moments that you want to have confidence in the individuals who are there and trust in the information that those individuals are able to bring you.
Host Joe Scarborough agreed. He said:
That is a question, really, time and time again with all of these nominees: their competence, whether they have the experience to run agencies because when, when these things happen.
We have a lot of nominees that have been put up that just some people have openly said, well, they’ll be good on TV. Well, right now you need people who aren’t good on TV. You need people right now who have real world experience and the agencies that they’re going to be running.
Watch above via MSNBC.
