MSNBC host Joe Scarborough criticized his colleagues in the media for what he viewed as their failure to defend CBS News’s Gayle King after Snoop Dogg made threatening remarks directed at her.
The 48-year-old rapper condemned the reporter for asking former WNBA superstar Lisa Leslie about Kobe Bryant’s sexual assault settlement after he was killed in a helicopter crash with his 13-year-old daughter Gianna and seven others last month. The teased clip of the interview featuring the questioning went viral, with many accusing King of not being sensitive after the former NBA star’s death.
The panelists of Morning Joe discussed on Monday’s show the profanity-laced tirade in which Snoop Dogg called King a “funky dog-head bitch” and a “punk motherf—er.” Scarborough called the media’s silence on the issue “deafening.” He also called out people “like Katy Perry, who worked with Snoop in the past. People like our dear friend Martha Stewart, who’s working with him now.”
“It’s time for people to actually speak out. … Again, let’s just keep this very simple, because it is very simple. A black female journalist asked a tough question in the middle of a wide-ranging interview, and because of that, her life was threatened. ‘We’re coming to get you,’ from a man, it must be remembered, who was arrested for murder,” he added. “’We’re coming to get you’ and the New York Times doesn’t write an editorial about this? The Washington Post doesn’t write an editorial, the Wall Street Journal doesn’t write an editorial about this, nobody talks about this?”
In the video Snoop Dogg posted on social media, he stated in part: “Gayle King, out of pocket for that shit. Way out of pocket. What do you gain from that? … We expect more from you, Gayle. Don’t you hang out with Oprah [Winfrey]? Why are y’all attacking us? We your people. You ain’t come after Harvey Weinstein, asking them dumbass questions. I get sick of y’all.”
CBS News President Susan Zirinsky released a statement calling Snoop Dogg’s comments “reprehensible.”
The rapper posted another video over the weekend, claiming he never meant to threaten King. “I’m a nonviolent person. When I said what I said, I spoke for the people who felt like Gayle was very disrespectful towards Kobe Bryant and his family,” he said.
