When MSNBC’s Joy Reid meets with former colleague Mehdi Hasan to discuss the Israel-Hamas War, it is guaranteed that the viewer will end up dumber than they were at the beginning of the segment. Yet, even by their standards, Thursday’s edition of The ReidOut was especially noteworthy because the duo somehow managed to be both incredibly outrageous and unintentionally hilarious.
Reid began the segment by laughing at people who are comparing President Joe Biden’s decision to withhold weapons from Israel to Donald Trump’s first impeachment trial. She also got in a historically illiterate cheap shot at Sen. Tom Cotton, “President Biden is facing blowback for saying that he will stop sending bombs and artillery shells to Israel if it launches a major invasion on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Senator Tom Cotton, of slavery was the best bad option thing, has called on the House to impeach Biden for withholding weapons to Israel, even comparing Biden’s actions to the charges in Trump’s first impeachment, in which Trump was accused of strong-arming Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden or get no military aid. Yeah, really not the same thing at all.”
First, Cotton was referencing an obvious historical fact that the Founders were presented with two options: one nation born in liberty that had slavery or multiple nations that had slavery with no such ideals to appeal to. They correctly chose the first. Second, Trump was impeached for abuse of power, defined as using American foreign policy to advance your own personal interest at the expense of the national interest. The “dirt on Joe Biden or get no military aid” was just the details.
Ironically, when Hasan joined, he would hail Biden’s decision to withhold the aid precisely because it was good politics. The man who once apologized for once being pro-life declared that anyone who disagrees supports killing kids, “Look, what I would say is put aside the morality of not wanting to support the killing of kids in Rafah, put aside international law which is against this stuff. Just from a practical domestic political perspective, it would be in Joe Biden’s and Democratic Party’s interest to have this war end.”
The idea that international law prohibits Army X from attacking Army Y simply because Y encamps itself in a dense urban environment is not only insane, it’s factually wrong (see Article 51, Section 7 of the Additional Protocol to the Geneva Conventions). Taking Hasan’s point to its logical conclusion would require freedom-loving nations to simply cede major cities to the enemy.
After going through what Hasan considered to be Biden’s “good message on the domestic front,” Reid declared that “it does seem to me that what [Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] wants is for the war to go on. Forever would be perfect.”
Biden is demanding that Israel slow down and come up with an elaborate plan before attacking Rafah, but because Netanyahu has thus far listened to him, Reid and Hasan attack him for prolonging the war.
As for Netanyahu’s motivations, Reid claimed, “for him, his fate, like Donald Trump’s, in terms of staying out of prison and keeping and retaining power… So, Netanyahu has no interest in the thing Joe Biden needs, which is peace.”
Reid and Hasan would go on to add that Netanyahu doesn’t care about the hostages and cited Israelis protesting as their evidence, but people like Reid and Hasan always conveniently leave out the fact that the leader of the opposition, Benny Gantz, is part of the war cabinet.
Also, what “Joe Biden needs”? How about what America needs? If Reid and Hasan are the good two state solution-supporting, peace-loving progressives they claim to be, maybe they can next explain how Israel and the Palestinians are supposed to come to a peaceful solution with Hamas still in power.
Here is a transcript for the May 9 show:
MSNBC The ReidOut
5/9/2024
7:52 PM ET
JOY REID: President Biden is facing blowback for saying that he will stop sending bombs and artillery shells to Israel if it launches a major invasion on the city of Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. Senator Tom Cotton, of slavery was the best bad option thing, has called on the House to impeach Biden for withholding weapons to Israel, even comparing Biden’s actions to the charges in Trump’s first impeachment, in which Trump was accused of strong-arming Ukraine to get dirt on Joe Biden or get no military aid. Yeah, really not the same thing at all.
…
MEHDI HASAN: Look, what I would say is put aside the morality of not wanting to support the killing of kids in Rafah, put aside international law which is against this stuff. Just from a practical domestic political perspective, it would be in Joe Biden’s and Democratic Party’s interest to have this war end.
REID: Yes.
HASAN: Right? Joe Biden has a good domestic record to run on. He has record falls in crime, you know, record low unemployment. He’s taken a good move on marijuana. He’s got a good message on the domestic front.
REID: Yeah. Yeah.
HASAN: It’s getting blotted out because he wants to stick with Netanyahu and I am glad there is now some distance between him and Netanyahu. It needs to increase.
REID: Let’s talk about Netanyahu because it seems to me—
HASAN: Do we have to?
REID: —We must talk about him. It does seem to me that what he wants is for the war to go on.
HASAN: Yes.
REID: Forever would be perfect, because for him, his fate, like Donald Trump’s, in terms of staying out of prison–
HASAN: Yeah.
REID: — and keeping and retaining power–
HASAN: Yeah.
REID: — it is all tied to the war continuing. So, Netanyahu has no interest in the thing Joe Biden needs, which is peace.
HASAN: Netanyahu’s counting down the days to a Trump presidency.
REID: That’s it.
HASAN: Where he knows he’ll have much more freedom. He knows he has a trial coming up. This is about him personally—
REID: Absolutely.
HASAN: Like Trump, he cares about himself more than anything else. He’s got a coalition that will collapse if he agrees to any kind of ceasefire and he’s abandoned the hostages, Joy. Like, I always hear people saying “you don’t care about the hostages.” You know who doesn’t care about the hostages? Benjamin Netanyahu.
REID: And their families say so because they’re literally protesting—
HASAN: Their families are getting assaulted by Israeli police.
REID: Absolutely. Absolutely.
HASAN: Their families stood outside Netanyahu’s house earlier this week and said “there’s blood on your hands.” So, when I hear people in America saying “oh, you don’t care about the hostages” go to Israel–
REID: Yeah.
HASAN: — see what the hostages are saying, they want a deal. They want an end to the conflict, they want their people home, as we all should want.