On Monday, as cable news talking heads tried to outdo each other voiding outrage over President Trump’s press conference with Russian leader Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, one stood above the rest.
During an appearance on “All in With Chris Hayes” guest-hosted by Ali Velshi, MSNBC contributor Jill Wine-Banks offered some analysis of the situation which managed to shoehorn in comparisons to 9/11, the Cuban Missile Crisis, the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and Kristallnacht.
“We were burglarized this time by foreign agents,” said Wine-Banks, a former Watergate prosecutor, speaking of the 2016 Russian hacking campaign. “It’s just as serious to me as the Cuban Missile Crisis in terms of an attack or the 9/11 attack. The president is taking the side of the people who attacked us.”
“His performance today will live in infamy as much as the Pearl Harbor attack or Kristallnacht and it’s really a serious issue that we need to deal with,” she added.
Reps for MSNBC did not immediately respond to request for comment.
While she was the most colorful by a mile, Wine-Banks was certainly not alone in her negative assessment that the Trump-Putin summit.
On “Morning Joe” Tuesday, host Joe Scarborough opened with a fiery monologue attacking Trump and saying he was a “dumpy stooge” for Putin.
Trump was also mostly abandoned on Fox News. On the set of “Fox & Friends” — a program he is known to watch regularly — co-host Brian Kilmeade carefully spelled out why Trump’s performance had “fallen short” and urged the president to make a correction.
“Kennedy would love to have undone his first meeting with Khrushchev,” said Kilmeade. “This is something that needs to be corrected.”