Joy Reid may end up being a bigger pain in MSNBC’s neck than network executives had originally anticipated.
First, she proved this week that her new prime-time show will be every bit as deranged as her now-defunct homophobic blog, on which she railed regularly against conservatives and Israel. If the network’s brass had assumed Reid would moderate her fanaticism even a little bit to suit the style and content of the time slot previously held by Chris Matthews, she showed this week that they were sorely mistaken.
Now, Reid is dealing with the fact that a federal appeals court ruled on Wednesday that a lower court was wrong when it tossed a defamation lawsuit brought against the cable host in 2019 by a supporter of President Trump.
Roslyn La Liberte filed her suit against Reid after the cable host posted a picture of the Trump supporter on various social media platforms comparing her to 1950s segregationists.
The Washington Examiner’s Mike Brest reported:
Reid, who was named the network’s newest prime-time host less than a week ago, retweeted the photo with the caption, “You are going to be the first deported.” Then, she posted it again on social media with her own caption, “You are going to be the first deported … dirty Mexican!” In a subsequent post, Reid added, “Make the picture black and white and it could be the 1950s and the desegregation of a school. Hate is real, y’all. It hasn’t even really gone away.”
The final post, on July 1, juxtaposed the photo of La Liberte with a 1957 photograph showing one of the Little Rock Nine walking past a screaming white woman.
However, in the real world, La Liberte was actually trying to keep things “civil,” the 14-year-old boy himself said at the time in interviews with local media outlets.
La Liberte’s son contacted Reid immediately to say that the photo, as presented on her Twitter account, lacked necessary context, according to the suit. The son also reportedly provided Reid with a link to the local television interview showing the 14-year-old referring to his interaction with La Liberte as polite and respectful.
Despite that La Liberte’s son reportedly reached out to correct the record, Reid posted the picture elsewhere on Instagram and Facebook alongside a 1957 photo of segregationist demonstrators in Little Rock, Arkansas. Reid included a caption that read, “It was inevitable that this image would be made. It’s also easy to look at old black and white photos and think: I can’t believe that person screaming at a child, with their face twisted in rage, is real. B[ut] everyone one of them were. History sometimes repeats. And it is full of rage.”
The MSNBC host’s social media posts could easily give the false impression that La Liberte is a racist, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this week, adding that the cable host is, therefore, “liable for what is insinuated, as well as for what is stated explicitly.” The court also ruled that California’s anti-SLAPP statute, which is meant to discourage frivolous lawsuits, “is inapplicable in federal court because it conflicts” with the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure regarding defense and objections and summary judgment
This is 100% exactly how I expected the elevation of Reid on MSNBC to go down on the network.
The ink is barely dry on her prime-time contract, and she is already off to the races, handing her higher-ups a renewed defamation lawsuit all the while using the all-important 7 p.m. slot to rage against the “apartheid” Republican Party.
Congratulations, MSNBC. Your shiny new prime-time hire is off to a roaring start. Literally everyone who knows anything about Reid saw this coming. Well, everyone, that is, except for apparently the people who handed her the chair previously held by Matthews.
