Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid attacked MSNBC on Wednesday for an interview the left-leaning network aired with the businessmen and philanthropists Charles and David Koch.
An interview with the Kochs aired Tuesday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” hosted by former Republican Rep. Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski. In the interview, the Kochs defended their roles as major financial backers of Republican candidates all around the country and said one of their main goals in politics was to end “corporatism” and “corporate welfare.”
Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, Reid criticized the interview as too soft and followed up with an email blast to reporters.
The Kochs “have procured a media that is too intimidated by their billions to hold them accountable,” Reid said in the email. He went on to cite some of the questions Scarborough and Brzezinski asked in their interview, wherein they referred to the Kochs’ “graciousness,” asked which Koch was “the good brother” and said, “You sound like my dad.”
“Wow — those are some really tough questions asked by the hosts of ‘Morning Joe,'” Reid’s email said. “That’s tough journalism. Those questions are so easy, that may even qualify them to moderate the next Republican presidential debate.”
“When the media rolls over for these modern day robber barons, as it is doing now, our country is in trouble,” the email said.
Scarborough and Reid continued the battle over Twitter. Reid tweeted at Scarborough, “that was some tough journalism in your interview with the Kochs.” Scarborough replied by saying Reid is “still bitter because your dumb strategy to focus so much on the Kochs cost Democrats the majority. #Duh.”
Reid has long targeted the Kochs as a type of puppet master of the Republican Party. Heading into the 2014 midterm elections, Reid accused them of trying to “buy the country.”
In a statement to the Washington Examiner media desk, Scarborough said Reid’s criticism was unjustified.
“Reid’s unbridled rage toward the Kochs led to a failed electoral strategy that cost Democrats their majority in 2014,” Scarborough said. “I can understand why he remains so bitter to this day.”
Scarborough also said that in the MSNBC interview, Charles Koch “saved his harshest criticisms for Republicans he once supported.”
“It is easy to understand why Harry Reid is enraged by the kind of thoughtful discussions we have with our Democratic and Republican guests on ‘Morning Joe,'” he said. “It was Reid, after all, who brought shame to the Senate floor last year by quoting Joseph McCarthy and calling his political opponents ‘un-American.'”
