Andrea Mitchell: Trump’s “Completely Uneducated About Any Part Of The World”
On Sunday, a group of reporters largely responsible for Donald Trump’s rise to the top of the GOP race went on the attack, laying into the celebrity billionaire and presumptive Republican Presidential nominee for his stunning lack of knowledge regarding world affairs. During a panel discussion on NBC’s Meet the Press, host Chuck Todd and MSNBC anchor Andrea Mitchell, along with other NBC/MSNBC reporters, ridiculed Trump’s editorial board meeting with the Washington Post, pointing out how ridiculous many of his answers were to foreign policy questions.
After Todd played a bit of the audio from the lengthy interview, which featured Trump commenting how attractive the editors were, he then turned to Mitchell to get her take on it. Mitchell, responded with a fairly brutal takedown in which she ripped Trump for his inability to answer any question and his complete ignorance of the world around him.
CHUCK TODD:
By the way, just so folks know, when we excerpted this, so then everybody around the room, introduced themselves, subject got changed.
ANDREA MITCHELL:
Exactly. And he cannot stick to a subject. It is remarkable. And when he doesn’t know something, he just changes the subject, and makes it all about himself.
CHUCK TODD:
On national security, it’s very noticeable, especially to your ears and mine.
ANDREA MITCHELL:
Absolutely. And this was a week where he could have gone after President Obama, arguably. There’s a lot happening, and the president has some vulnerabilities, so does Hillary Clinton. But instead, he’s all over the lot. And then, The New York Times, David Sanger and Maggie Haberman do an interview with him, a 90-minute interview, and it’s in today’s paper and online.
And the transcript, if you read the transcript online, he would cancel defense treaties with Japan and South Korea against North Korea. He doesn’t mind, he would be okay if Japan and South Korea go nuclear. American policy for decades since World War II has been trying to keep nukes out of that arena. He would stop importing oil from Saudi Arabia if they don’t pay more for their defense.
We need oil. We are not energy independent. We rely on oil still for our daily needs. He is completely all over the lot. On Iran, he complains that Iran isn’t buying our planes. It had to be pointed out to him that Iran is still under sanctions and cannot buy American planes. He thinks North Korea and Iran are the biggest trading partners, when North Korea’s biggest trading partner is China. He is completely uneducated about any part of the world.
You know, this is all well and good. Mitchell was pretty much right on the money with her criticisms of Trump when it comes to policy and his lack of understanding about pretty much everything that doesn’t revolve around poll numbers. But, this is all a few months too late. Pretty much since Trump announced he was running last summer, her network has bent over backwards to give him as much free media and uncritical coverage as possible.
While Todd has recently taken the ‘principled’ stand to no longer allow Trump to phone into Meet the Press for interviews, that only occurred after he granted him at least a half-dozen phoners. Morning Joe constantly lets Trump call in and take over the program, and whenever he isn’t on the show, the content is almost entirely focused on the former reality TV star. The network has a habit of breaking into scheduled programming to provide Trump rallies live coverage.
Yet, now, we see Mitchell and Todd lamenting about the possibility of this ignoramus potentially making his way to the White House. Sorry, guys, but you helped get us to this point. Time to start taking some responsibility for your actions.
If Trump comes to power, God forbid, it would only be fitting if the first press freedom he pounced on as prey was CNN. Gallows humor aside, when, oh when is someone in the MSM going to have a Welch addressing McCarthy kind of moment (MSM addressing MSM, in this case); “Have we no sense of decency?”