Appearing on the PBS reporter roundtable on Washington Week Friday, MSNBC host Andrea Mitchell complained that Republicans have “controlled the narrative” when it comes to the Mueller report. She also acted like she was a Democratic strategist for a second by urging the Democrats to focus on health care instead of obsessing about Mueller and Russia.

The segment on the Mueller report began with a focus on Attorney General William Barr’s testimony on Capitol Hill, where he alleged that “spying did occur” on the Trump campaign. Nancy Cordes of CBS News accused Barr of speaking out of both sides of his mouth when it came to his belief on whether or not spying occurred as well as his intention to put together a team to look into whether or not spying occurred.

Washington Week host Robert Costa picked up on Cordes’s point by mentioning that “there is an Inspector General inside of the Department of Justice already looking at the FISA courts and the surveillance from the 2016 campaign” and asking “why did the Attorney General get ahead of his own I.G?” Seung Min Kim of The Washington Post responded by telling Costa “that’s a really great question” and chatted about her interview with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, who said that he would wait “defer to the Inspector General report and let that play out.” Then Mitchell complained about Democrats losing the PR battle:

ANDREA MITCHELL: And what has happened because of the Attorney General’s initial four-page memo and because of the President’s reaction -- you know, I’m exonerated, you know, I’m cleared, it’s all over -- they’ve controlled the narrative, and they have branded this as a complete exoneration. And if there are a number, you know, a lot of redactions in this report and if it’s not conclusive, it’s going to be very hard, I think, for the Democrats, in a protracted legal argument, going to the courts, trying to get this out. They really are going to be on the defensive, and I don’t know how they can get ahead of it. They really need to start talking about health care and, and other things. As important as this is, I don’t know how they can get on top of it.

Based on the fact that the Democrats have started obsessing about President Trump’s tax returns, it looks like they have decided not to take Mitchell’s advice to start focusing on “health care,” although the President’s tax returns may fall under the umbrella of “other things.”

A fuller transcript of the relevant portion of Friday’s edition of Washington Week is below. Click “expand” to read more.