During MSNBC’s coverage of President Donald Trump’s highly anticipated inauguration, host Rachel Maddow interrupted coverage of the event to report on the breaking news that outgoing President Joe Biden moved to pardon his family members. As the network aired footage of the ceremony, Maddow cut in, sharing the news with a quote from Biden that his family has been the victim of “unrelenting” political attacks.
According to the outgoing president, the supposed attacks against his family are designed to get at him, prompting him to issue sweeping pardons for his relatives. However, conservatives have argued this is precisely what was waged against President Trump over the past few years as many believe the federal government was weaponized against him.
As the ceremony was being televised to viewers, Maddown interrupted, “I apologize to tell you that as president-elect Trump has taken the stage here, we’ve just had an announcement from President Biden, quote, ‘My family has been subjected to unrelenting attacks and threats motivated solely by a desire to hurt me, the worst kind of partisan politics.’”
She continued, “‘I have no reason to believe that these attacks will end.’ He has exercised his pardon power to pardon his family: James P. Biden, Sarah Jones Biden, Valerie Biden Owens, John T. Owens and Francis Deputy Biden. Outgoing President Joe Biden issuing pardons to members of his immediate family as what appears to be his last act as president.”
Political commentator Joe Vazquez weighed in on the clip, suggesting it was an attempt to “memory hole” what Trump has been subjected to for years. “It wasn’t long before Rachel @maddow interrupted the proceedings to make Biden out to be a victim of the “worst kind of partisan politics” as a pretext for his preemptive pardons. Wow, what a way to memory-hole what Trump has been put through the past four years,” he said.
Maddow and other liberal commentators took issue with various other aspects of the event as well. In one instance, the host leaned into the “oligarch” narrative being pushed by Democrats about the billionaire business titans who attended the inauguration. “How is this happening in America?’ Maddow asked. “Kristi Noem, the nominee for homeland security, next to Apple CEO Tim Cook,” she added.
She further questioned, “How is this happening? Why are people with tons of money up on the dais with Cabinet nominees and family members?” Similarly, Maddow’s counterpart at CNN, Jake Tapper, echoed similar sentiment. “Those five people… control so much of the information we receive,” he said. “So much is in their hands when it comes to ascertaining, monitoring, or refusing to monitor what is real, what is not real.”
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Tapper continued, illustrating his concern about the influence of the billionaires over President Trump., “We’re about to enter an era of deep-fakes and all sorts of misinformation’ – and that ‘the degree to which those five gentleman play a role or do not play a role, will be pivotal in terms of where the American people are four years from now,” the CNN anchor added.
Watch Maddow interrupt the ceremony below:
Note: The featured image is a screenshot from the embedded video.