MSNBC’S Willie Geist Slams Mark Meadows’ ‘Garbage Argument’ That Nobody Cares About Hatch Act Violations

MSNBC’s Willie Geist was not impressed with White House chief of staff Mark Meadows claiming nobody outside the Washington, D.C. beltway cares about potential violations of the Hatch Act at the Republican National Convention.

Geist spoke to the AP’s Jonathan Lemire on Thursday’s Morning Joe about Meadows’ comments.

“We have seen not just Secretary of State Pompeo, of course, give a political speech while on an official trip to the Middle East, to Israel,” Lemire said.

“But even the smaller things, the trappings of the White House, when we saw the Marines opening the door from the President walking from one portion of the White House to the other. Technically that shouldn’t be allowed either.”

“Yes, this White House banking that the average American doesn’t care about this sort of thing but we don’t know that’s true. Certainly there are moments when interests inside the beltway don’t line up with those outside. But there are Americans who care about following the law.”

“I think we should expect a number of lawsuits from good government groups in the coming days over how this White House has tried to stage their convention basically on one piece of federal property after another.”

“What a terrible argument from Mark Meadows. You could extend that as far as you want to, Americans don’t care about ethics rules, they don’t care our families still being involved in businesses,” Geist said.

“That could go on forever, and if you numb the people enough, say it’s not sexy, it’s not in the headlines they don’t care so we don’t have to follow the laws. That’s a garbage argument.”

Watch the video above, via MSNBC.