MSNBC host defends heated clash with 'horribly annoying' presidential candidate
MSNBC's Mehdi Hasan faced off against Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy in a heated interview – and afterward explained why he believed it was important to challenge him no matter how "annoying" it got.
The GOP candidate refused four times to say what he had meant with a previous comment that Donald Trump's "abhorrent" behavior made him a "danger to democracy," and the two clashed over Ramaswamy's business record, conspiratorial claims about 9/11 and his stance on the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
"Morning Joe" contributor Mike Barnicle asked for his reaction after watching video clips of the interview.
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"Mehdi, as you sat there live interviewing him, and as you sat there this morning watching it again, this horribly annoying person, did it occur to you during the course of the live interview, did it occur to you that maybe you were wasting five, 10, 15 minutes of your life that you'll never get back interviewing this person?" Barnicle asked.
The other panelists snickered at the question, but Hasan said it was important to challenge wild claims from some public figures but ignore some others.
"I have a hygiene test on my show, where I don't allow election deniers, climate deniers, anti-vaxxers on, precisely because you're right, there can be a waste of time when you interview bad-faith actors," Hasan said.
"To be fair to Vivek, he is not an election denier in the traditional sense, and whether we like it or not, he is a contender in the race, in third place, and I thought, look, this guy has been getting away with saying so much nonsense so far. He's able to pivot away from questions he doesn't like, he's able to attack the liberal 'fake news' media in Trumpian fashion. He denies things on tape, he denies more things than any other politician denies things."
Hasan showed Ramaswamy's tweets criticizing Trump or rolled video clips of saying things he was denying on air, and he said the GOP candidate did that because he'd become accustomed to getting away with that behavior.
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"There is another moment in the exchange where we talked about the scholarship he got from the Soros family as a law student," Hasan said. "He said, 'I didn't have money.' He denied saying it, and then I had to say, you did say it. He said, 'Check my tax returns.' I said, "I have them here -- you made $650,000, you didn't need the scholarship. He relies on people not holding him to account."
"To go back to Mike's question, that's why I wanted to do it," Hasan added. "Certain people, no matter how annoying it may be to do it, you have to hold them to account."
Watch the video below or at this link.
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