Trump Spends MLK Day Taunting Joe Scarborough And Attacking Joy Reid
Martin Luther King Day should be one of the nation’s most cherished holidays, one that honors a man now considered a secular saint by all who are not avowed racists. Even the Right likes to use select clauses of his speeches, often out of context, to further their own agenda. The holiday represents the man, certainly, but King would be furious if it also didn’t represent the movement he led.
Unfortunately, the holiday seems almost intentionally set aside for a day when employees will be least upset if expected to work, having just come off a long holiday season and perhaps wanting to get back to normal. On this holiday, more than most, the country needs its leaders to come forward and reinforce the importance of the man, the cause, its continued importance, the unfinished work, and the holiday itself.
Donald Trump got the day started early, putting out one of his “Official Statements of the…” from an office that never closes, one that seems to exist solely to get around his Twitter ban. At 5:00 a.m. on Martin Luther King day, Trump was awake to initially ask
“Will Morning Joe be canceled?
“He and Mika’s ratings are very low. They are having an extremely hard time finding an audience to listen to the Fake News they spurn,. Losing them would be very sad—hope it doesn’t happen!”
Yes, it sounds like a fourth-grader, yes – “spurning” something means avoiding something or being critical of something, and yes, it came out right before a show that would certainly focus on the Trump rally in Arizona that flopped in every way, even in the minds of many MAGAs. But it also reads like a “throw-in,” something said in order to get to his real point.
His real point seemed to be to attack the most prominent black woman in cable media, the only black woman to host her own primetime weeknight cable news show, one that often focuses on the type of racial justice for which King fought.
“On another front, looks like Unjoy Reid, the racist commentator on “MSDNC” is toast. Her stupidity is only surpassed by her absolute lack of television persona. She never had it, and never will. The only thing she’s good at is spewing racist hate, but – obviously, no one is listening!”
So Trump rises early to basically throw out a “Joe” sucks comment, then quickly moved on to almost “randomly” pick the black primetime host on MSNBC. He called her a racist, stupid, lacking television presence, never having had talent, someone who never will have talent, someone with only one talent, someone who spews racist hatred, and a person no one wants to watch.
Only Trump can know with certainty, but it looks like the only reason he brought up Morning Joe but it looks to use like Trump wanted to put out his real MLK Day message early, when he might get less criticism for it – but would be noticed by those who read all his statements, the people who will know that the five-sentence, cliche-filled, statement he puts out later doesn’t represent his real thoughts. Those have already been conveyed.
As we said up top, this day, more than most, requires our leaders to reinforce its essence and purpose. Trump certainly did his part for his crowd.
Jason Miciak is a political writer, features writer, author, and attorney. He is originally from Canada but grew up in the Pacific Northwest as a dual Canadian-American citizen, which he grows increasingly thankful for every day. He now enjoys life as a single dad, writing from the beaches of the Gulf Coast, getting advice from his beloved daughter and teammate. He is very much the dreamy mystic that cannot add and loves dogs more than most people. He also likes studying cooking, theoretical physics, cosmology, and quantum mechanics. He likes pizza.
Please visit his Substack Newsletter, get the first month free: Much Ado About Everything: By Jason Miciak