Joy Reid and Kurt Eichenwald are a liberal-media hit team made in heaven—or somewhere else, depending on your perspective. Reid has the habit of rudely cutting off or correcting conservatives brave enough to venture onto her show. Eichenwald’s MO is to laugh nastily in the face of conservatives with whom he disagrees.

We’ve documented this before, as here, here and here, and it happened again this morning. On Reid’s MSNBC show, AM Joy, when Trump surrogate Steve Cortes suggested that Hillary Clinton has jeopardized national security with her mishandling of emails, Reid shut him down: “you know better than that. I respect you too much to let you go on a rant that is full of unfactual information, sir.” Reid then turned it over to Eichenwald to attack Cortes, saying “your witness,” as if Cortes were fodder for cross-examination.

A bit later, when Cortes mentioned that [the very liberal] Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame had said that it must be a “bombshell” that moved FBI Director Comey to issue his latest letter, Eichenwald broke out in derisive laughter.

Note: Reid also tried to undermine Cortes’ credibility, saying “I know you have a job to do here as a surrogate.” What is the rest of Reid’s panel, including Eichenwald, April Ryan of American Urban Radio Networks, notorious Clinton apologist Joe Conason and Reid herself, but media surrogates for Hillary Clinton?

STEVE CORTES: Well, listen, Joy, I think it’s important to note, by the way, that we are not cheering this by any stretch. I’m an American first, before a partisan. And as an American, I am very troubled that our Secretary of State jeopardized our national security as often and as badly as she did. The Clintons want to get back into the White House. They want to occupy our highest public office, yet they have acted for decades in the shadows and they want to have it both ways. Secret servers, tens of millions of dollars — JOY REID: There is nothing that we just discussed that has anything to do with jeopardizing national security, Steve. You know better than that — CORTES: No, I — REID: I respect you too much to let you go on a rant that is full of unfactual information, sir. CORTES: Joy — REID: No, no, no. What is at issue here in this new release is the discovery of Huma Abedin’s — actually, let me let Kurt Eichenwald who is doing the reporting on this tell us what we know about what this new tranche of e-mails is about. Because I didn’t read anything in any statement that Comey has made that talks about jeopardizing national security or even e-mails to or from Hillary Clinton. Kurt Eichenwald, your witness. . . .

REID: And Steve, you know, the point that I want to make to you, Steve — and I know you have a job to do here as a surrogate. But if we are now criminalizing the mundane, at least in the minds of the public, casting an aspersion that — to the public can sound as if some crime was committed when what we’re really talking about is an aide to a politician printing things out for her boss and unfortunately being married to a creep. If that now becomes the basis to cast a broad, sweeping aspersion on somebody who yet can be President of the United States, politics only goes downhill from there, Steve. Is that the kind of politics you want to be a part of? CORTES: Well look. We do have to be careful. We don’t know that a crime was committed. I suspect, but we don’t know that. But when you say — REID: You suspect? CORTES: When you say it’s mundane, let me tell you someone who doesn’t agree, it’s not from me, it’s not from the Trump camp. Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame — [Eichenwald can be heard bursting into loud laughter] CORTES: — who knows quite a bit about political scandal. Carl Bernstein said, this is, quote, a bombshell. He said it is unthinkable that the Director of the FBI would take this action lightly. So, he believes it’s a bombshell. I think most of the American public understands this is a bombshell. EICHENWALD: I don’t, I don’t, I don’t care what Carl Bernstein says. CORTES: It is yet more evidence that Hillary Clinton is disqualified from serving as our Commander-in-Chief.



