Progressive journalist Michael Tracey claimed Tuesday that MSNBC is has dropped all pretenses for their “contempt” towards Rep. Tulsi Gabbard (D-Hawaii).
The political news contributor said the left-leaning network has treated her fellow 2020 Democratic candidates, including businessman Andrew Yang and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) unfairly, but he argued that with Gabbard it, “crosses a certain threshold.”
“Fundamentally they’re beholden to whatever the market incentives are and right now it’s within their market interests to depict Tulsi as an infiltrator, as a Trojan horse in the Democratic Party and not deal on the substance with what she’s saying which is why over and over again they tar her as a Russian plant essentially,” Tracey told Hill.TV.
“There’s nobody who can really offer any kind countervailing view because it’s just not economically advantageous for them at this point,” he added.
MSNBC didn’t immediately return Hill.TV’s request for comment.
Tracey pointed to a fiery exchange between Gabbard and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) during last week’s 2020 primary debate as a prime example.
During the debate, Harris accused Gabbard of being a conservative media darling and consistently going on Fox News to bash President Obama during his tenure.
“I think that it’s unfortunate that we have someone on this stage who is attempting to be the Democratic nominee for president of the United States, who, during the Obama administration, spent four years full-time on Fox News criticizing President Obama,” Harris said.
Gabbard dismissed the criticism, calling it “ridiculous.”
The California senator also hit Gabbard over her meeting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, who U.S. officials have accused of being a war criminal. Harris concluded her attack by saying that Democrats need a candidate who can take on President Trump as well as “bring the party and the nation together.”
The back-and-forth came after Gabbard criticized the Democratic Party of fashioning outdated foreign policies “represented “by Hillary Clinton and others’ foreign policy.”
“Our Democratic Party unfortunately is not the party that is of, by and for the people. It is a party that has been and continues to be influenced by the foreign policy establishment in Washington, represented by Hillary Clinton and others’ foreign policy, by the military industrial complex and other greedy, corporate interests,” she said.
Leading up to the fifth Democratic debate, Gabbard engaged in a weeks-long feud with Clinton after the former Democratic presidential nominee said the Hawaii lawmaker was “the favorite of the Russians.”
—Tess Bonn
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