Thursday’s Morning Joe saw the return of both Mika and Joe to the set to lead discussion about the continuing fallout over Donald Trump’s baffling equivocations of Nazi violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
On hand also was BBC World News America anchor Katty Kay. Kay, a show staple, often presents the European side of things and generally classes things up with her clipped British accent.
Today we learned from Kay that Europeans increasingly viewed the United States as a “freak show” — even before the events in Charlottesville.
The Trump White House and the saga and the drama around it looks more like a freak show than anything else. And that’s kind of how America is seen at the moment,” she said. “It’s incredibly depressing to come back to this country that is so dispirited and is so dismissed around the world.”
“An irrelevant freak show,” echoed Mika in despair.
Kay’s full monologue is worth a read in full:
“I’ve been living here 20 years and every year I try and spend time with my family back in Europe and this is the first time, Mika, I’ve come back and felt America was almost being dismissed by other countries and this was before Charlottesville actually happened. There’s a sense that other countries just have to deal without America. America is losing it’s global leadership. The White House is losing moral authority around the world and Charlottesville doesn’t help that at all, and it’s almost an irrelevancy. This is the country with the biggest economy and biggest military in the world so they know they have to deal somehow with the United States, but countries in Europe are feeling more confident. They’re rejecting the kind of right wing extremism that we saw in Charlottesville, in elections in the Netherlands and in elections in France, they don’t want that in Europe. They’re feeling economically more confident as well and they’re doing their own deals. They’re looking to other countries to do deals on climate change and global trade issues and if anything the Trump White House and the saga and the drama around it looks more like a freak show than anything else. And that’s kind of how America is seen at the moment. It’s incredibly depressing to come back to this country that is so dispirited and is so dismissed around the world.”
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