The election desperation was palpable during MSNBC’s coverage of Night Three of the Republican National Convention on Wednesday. With news just breaking that President Biden was diagnosed with COVID again, co-host Joy Reid tried to suggest that if Biden recovered from the cold quickly, it should be viewed as “exactly the same” as former President Trump surviving an assassination attempt where he was shot in the head.

At first, Reid praised Biden’s diagnosis because it supposedly provided a remarkable political “opportunity” for the Biden campaign to blame Trump for killing people:

And it’s also, a quite interesting opportunity for President Biden to also show being responsible. I assume he's going to put a mask on when he gets inside Air Force One and not spread COVID around. But also to remind people of what hell we went through with COVID because of Donald Trump. Here is a great messaging opportunity for President Biden to bring out the tape and remind people of how many people died; a million people are no longer with us. Peoples’ grandmas were dying alone with their iPad. A great opportunity and messaging opportunity should the white House choose to take it.

 

 

In reality, more people died from COVID under the Biden administration.

Reid swerved into a conspiracy theory territory when she seemed to hint that the shooting was staged because of the so-called “photo-op” on stage. “Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given nine seconds to take a photo-op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation, we'll figure that out one day,” she speculated.

She proceeded to whine that Trump’s “survival of that and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of strength.” That comment was followed up with her insane suggestion that Biden recovering from a bug 99 percent of people survived was somehow on par with surviving getting shot in the head with a bullet:

This current president of the United States is 81 years old and has COVID, should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing? That he’s strong enough – older than Trump – to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So, if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn't that exactly the same?

“It should,” former Biden flack Jen Psaki agreed. “It should.”

The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read:

MSNBC’s The Beat
July 17, 2024
6:27:43 p.m. Eastern

(…)

JOY REID: And it’s also, a quite interesting opportunity for President Biden to also show being responsible. I assume he's going to put a mask on when he gets inside Air Force One and not spread COVID around. But also to remind people of what hell we went through with COVID because of Donald Trump. Here is a great messaging opportunity for President Biden to bring out the tape and remind people of how many people died; a million people are no longer with us. Peoples’ grandmas were dying alone with their iPad. A great opportunity and messaging opportunity should the white House choose to take it.

(…)

6:29:19 p.m. Eastern

REID: Here’s the question that I have on that. These two men are both elderly. Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason, was given nine seconds to take a photo-op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation, we'll figure that out one day. But his survival of that and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of strength.

This current president of the United States is 81 years old and has COVID, should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing? That he’s strong enough – older than Trump – to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So, if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn't that exactly the same?

JEN PSAKI: It should.

REID: I mean, it’s not exactly the same. It’s not the same incident but it's an elderly man coming through out of an illness.

PSAKI: It should.

(…)