MSNBC host Joy Reid posited that President Joe Biden’s potential recovery from COVID-19 would be the “exact same thing” as former President Donald Trump’s dodging of an assassin’s bullet during the network’s coverage of the Republican National Convention Wednesday night.
Biden was discovered to have caught COVID for a second time during his presidency earlier in the day, while the RNC celebrated its third night in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Reid, who described both pols as “elderly,” first touched on the Secret Service pulling Trump off the Butler, Pa. stage after gunman Thomas Matthew Crooks opened fire on the former commander in chief in front of a stunned rally crowd on Saturday.
“These two men are both elderly. Donald Trump is an elderly man who, for whatever reason,” Reid said, “was given nine seconds to take an iconic photo-op during an active shooter situation. Weird situation, we’ll figure that out one day.”
Reid then likened Trump avoiding the would-be assassin’s shots as “exactly the same thing” as Biden recuperating and coming back from COVID.
“This current President of the United States is 81 years old and has COVID, should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn’t that convey exactly the same thing?” Reid said. “That he’s strong enough – older than Trump – to have gotten something that used to really be fatal to people his age. So, if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies, isn’t that exactly the same?”
Reid then appeared to double-back on her comments, stating: “I mean it’s not exactly the same, it’s not the same incident, it’s an elderly man coming out of an illness.”
Reid was sharing the network’s dais with former Biden White House press secretary Jen Psaki, who joined the network in May 2022 after leaving the administration, and nodded along with Reid’s take before adding, “It should,” according to a video of the segment.
Reid also suggested Biden could use the diagnosis to remind Americans about the dangers of COVID and “what hell we went through with COVID because of Donald Trump” and boost his campaign.
“Here is a great messaging opportunity for President Biden to bring out the tape and remind people of how many people died; a million people are no longer with us,” she added. “Peoples’ grandmas were dying alone with their iPad. A great opportunity and messaging opportunity should the White House choose to take it.”
Reid has been a consistent critic of Trump and also received some blowback for comments she made about the assassination attempt and political violence on Monday — seeming to suggest that Trump brought the shooting on himself with violent rhetoric of his own.
She described an incident with men “pacing” and acting “menacing” during the 2016 RNC in Cleveland, Ohio, a moment Reid said was the only time she was scared doing her job, according to Fox News.
“The idea of political violence that we’ve been nursing really since then, is so dangerous,” she said. “It’s so dangerous that you cannot avoid the consequences of it, even if you’re one of the people promoting it.”
Biden was in Las Vegas to deliver a speech to a Latino advocacy group, but quickly headed to Air Force One for a trip back to his Delaware vacation home upon learning of the diagnosis.
The president landed at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware around 10:30 pm local time and told reporters he was “doing well.”
Biden and Trump are locked into very different political battles as the 2024 presidential race moves forward.
The current commander in chief is still trying to fend off calls for him to step aside for another Democrat to take on Trump in the fall after a disastrous debate performance last month.
Trump, who polls show leading Biden in key swing states, has seen his status only grow among Republicans and in polls since the shooting that resulted in an injury to his right ear.
