OF COURSE: MSNBC Politicizes Freezing Texans

On Thursday morning, MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle devoted an entire section of her 9:00 a.m.CET show to Republicans’ fault for the suffering of millions of Texans affected by recent freezing temperatures and blizzards.

During its opening, Ruhle – known as a Democratic sympathizer – condemned elected Republican officials for “spending their time getting political” and doing nothing more to help the people of Texas. Less than ten minutes later (9:09 a.m.) Ruhle and her guest, the liberal expert Matthew Dowd, clearly politicized the winter catastrophe by blaming the climate-damaging conservatives for it.

Dowd, a former strategist for the 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign, became the left media commentator, initially calling the Republican leadership a “total failure.” Of course, neither Ruhle nor Dowd mentioned the fact that the temperatures and snowfall in Texas are nearly unprecedented. Instead, they fervently used the law as a scapegoat.

Ruhle slammed Texas Republican Governor Gregg Abbott for appearing on Fox News Channel and other networks to educate the nation about the crisis his constituents were facing, and strongly warned Americans of the various shortcomings green energy – especially wind turbines. The left host clearly missed its point, dismissing Abbott’s concerns as nonsense as federal environmental laws “haven’t even been passed”: “Governor Abbott spent time this week on cable news that attributed this crisis to the Green New Deal. Which makes absolutely no sense, the Green New Deal hasn’t even been passed at the federal level, especially not in Texas. So this is a lie. “

When asked if he believed Texas residents would get enough support from their lawmakers, Dowd callously replied, “The real answer is“ No. ”Dowd neglected to suggest what to lawmakers – who may have been listening they can do to better serve their communities.Instead, Dowd lambasted fossil fuel use, claiming the governor and lieutenant governor of Texas refused to accept responsibility for the unforeseen harsh winter conditions.

Dowd urged the audience to “never forget” the politicians who “lied to” them. Does that sound like unity?

Stephanie Ruhle’s hypocritical politicization of the winter storm that hit millions of people in Texas was brought to you in part by Tylenol. You can Contact this advertiserand others via the Conservatives Fight Back page, which is conveniently linked Here.

Click “Expand” to read the full February 18th transcript:

MSNBC Live with Stephanie Ruhle

02/18/2021

9:01 am Eastern

STEPHANIE RUHLE: Hello, I’m Stephanie Ruhle and I live at MSNBC’s headquarters here in New York City. It’s Thursday February 18th, we’re getting smarter. Millions of Americans are awakening to freezing temperatures today as the massive winter storm that hit the south is now moving towards the east coast. But right now, no place is worse off than the state of Texas, where hundreds of thousands of people are still without power for a fourth day in a row. It was a slow motion disaster that began when a winter storm overwhelmed the power grid and the people who operate it. As we speak, there are still more than 500,000 homes and businesses with no electricity, heat, and in some cases even water. There have been at least 21 weather-related deaths – which we know of – in Texas alone. The residents there are angry. They just want their lights on and their heat on. But even if some officials try to do it, other leaders spend their time getting political, blaming, and turning this human crisis into some kind of nonsensical political debate.

[…]

09:09 Eastern

RUHLE: I’d like to involve Matthew Dowd, chief strategist for the 2004 Bush-Cheney presidential campaign and founder of the Country Over Party. He’s on the phone with me from Texas now. Uh, Matthew, you’re a transplant Texan, but you’re also a man who understands politics. How did this human crisis become political? You are speaking to me from a hotel room because you have had to leave your house.

MATTHEW DOWD: Well, thank you, Stephanie. Like I said, I feel better than most of the others. We’ve lost power in the hotel three or four times since I’ve been here. I will try to venture home and evaluate the pipe damage – from frozen pipes in my house. We’re starting to have more intermittent performance so that’s a good sign. But this government was a complete failure. It’s – it’s related to a lack of infrastructure investment. I would ask people, we can do two things at the same time, Stephanie. We can give the people here the help they need, the help they urgently need. So I’d just watch or listen to your people to look for all the charities that are working and check out Beto O’Rourke’s Twitter feed which has a number of suggestions on what people can do but we can take responsibility in the too In the midst of this, we are at another point where politicians who mislead the public and lie to the public put us in a dangerous position. We saw it in Flint where that happened, we saw it in the COVID situation where the president misled the public. We saw it in the election cycle. Which led to a riot, and now we see it in Texas, where the governor and former governor are misleading the country and misleading the Texans. So it’s a bad situation. People try to help each other without much government guidance, but that’s where we are today.

RUHLE: You said that the people in Texas need to remember this incident so that in the future they will choose executives with integrity who do not lie to them. Why do you feel the need to say that now?

DOWD: Well, I feel the need to say that now because we have such short-term memories and we watch things happen and we’ve seen it all happen. I have a feeling that 2020 did not end with regulation. We’re now working overtime from what happened in 2020 with what we’re going through this year. We shouldn’t forget. And I thought of that morning when I woke up, this morning, today is the day that Jimmy Lee Jackson was shot to death in Alabama for being a veterinarian and for protesting against voting rights or looking for voting rights, he was shot today, died eight days later, but on that day in 1965. The people in the civil rights movement kept not forgetting and pushing and pushing and pushing until they finally had a sense of justice and people understood the truth. We have to do that today. I know the election cycle and I know legislatures are still a long way off, but we cannot forget these events and the lack of truth and responsibility and accountability of our leaders. The only way we can fundamentally hold our leaders accountable and demand leaders of integrity is through elections. It is the only way in our republic that we can do that, and the only way we can do it is if we do not forget when people lost their integrity and did not lead in a state or in a country. We cannot forget.

RUHLE: Governor Abbott has been spending time this week on cable news attributing this crisis to the Green New Deal, which makes absolutely no sense. The Green New Deal hasn’t even been passed at the federal level, least of all in Texas. So this is a lie. But what does he do on site? You are in a safe hotel. What happens to people outside? Are they getting the legislature support they need?

DOWD: The real answer is no. The governor made various statements and did various things. I think what he did when he was on Fox News was outrageous. I tweeted this earlier. It is like a restaurant owner who, after all of his customers suffer from food poisoning, blames the problem because the menus were printed on recycled paper. That’s the same when he blames the Green New Deal. It has nothing to do with the problem. In fact, the fossil fuel industry that brought us to this climate change problem, which is why we have winter storms and storms due to forest fires across the country, brought us the problem, and right now they are the problem, and why we don’t have enough energy in people’s households. I think the governor is trying to hold anyone other than herself accountable when she should hold herself accountable. I don’t understand why executives don’t say, listen, I screwed up, we should have planned this better. Here is what I will do in the future and I think most Texans would think, okay, mistakes have been made, you will fix this situation but if you don’t point a finger at yourself and at everyone else it will solve the problem Not.

RUHLE: No, it doesn’t. Matthew, thank you for coming to see me. Stay safe where you are.

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