MSNBC host Rachel Maddow began her show with a disclaimer, saying that normally when President Donald Trump does something weird, she shows examples of what other presidents have done in the past. Trump's epic mistakes around Hurricane Dorian was unheard of. There is no historic context for what Trump has done with this storm.
"I cannot do that tonight. Because the U.S. President has never before done a thing even remotely like what President Trump did tonight in the context of this storm," Maddow said. I don’t know what would count as relevant historical context here if I tried to make up that story. So, we just gotta take it at face value and try to assess how we deal with this coming from the top of the federal government now."
She retold the strange story of how Trump canceled his Poland trip to monitor the hurricane. Then he actually spent the whole weekend golfing. Perhaps that is why Trump lacked the updated information about the storm and incorrectly stated it was headed for Alabama.
"Except what the president is holding up is false information," Maddow said about Trump's doctored map. "It’s an altered hurricane map. The little semi-circle in black Sharpie on the map, that was added to the map. That was not put there by the national weather service. That’s not something the national hurricane center did."
Bloomberg News has reported that Trump was the one who personally drew the false information on the map himself. CNN, by contrast, cited a White House staffer saying that it was someone other than the president who did it.
It prompted Maddow to wonder what Trump will do since the National Weather Service Hurricane Center was forced to correct him.
"If the National Weather Service persists in putting out real information that doesn't retroactively back up false things the president has said about this hurricane, is he going to fire them?" Maddow asked. "Is he going to retaliate? Is he going to denounce the weather service as the deep state? Will he tell Bill Barr he should prosecute them for something? Think Bill Barr will? It's insane. We don't have any way to make sense of this."
She also said that one would assume the weather would be the true equalizer. It's hard to lie about the weather, but that's exactly what Trump has done.
Watch her opener below:
Part 1:
Part 2:
