Joy-Ann Reid appeared on Meet the Press where she confronted WSJ columnist Kimberly Strassel on Trump’s team’s Russia collusion. She then schooled Strassel on what a real back channel is and corrected a misleading Breitbart story she claimed showed similarities between Trump’s Russia collusion and Obama on AM Joy.
Joy-Ann Reid schools another Right Wing misinformer
.@JoyAnnReid explains that Obama set up a real, traditional back channel, which is NOT what #JaredKushner did #AMJoy https://t.co/t13gOe0uTf
— Formerly 'AM JOY' on @MSNBC (@amjoyshow) May 28, 2017
A part of good journalism is researching false statements and correcting the record after the fact if necessary. Joy-Ann Reid did just that.
Kimberly Strassel attempted to characterize Trump’s establishment of a communications channel using Russian facilities to evade U.S. Intelligence as something done by both Obama and Reagan. In fact, she tried to spin a Breitbart story equating President Obama’s establishment of a backchannel with Iran as a similar event that did not get the scrutiny from the media as is Trump’s Russia collusion.
“Let me set the scene for you,” Strassel said. “It is 2008. We are having an election. And candidate Obama, he is not even President-elect, sends William Miller over to Iran to establish a back channel and let the Iranians know that should he win the election, they will have friendlier terms.”
Joy-Ann Reid did her homework and said the following on her MSNBC Program AM Joy immediately after she left the Meet the Press set.
“There is a new book that’s out,” Joy-Ann Reid said. “It is called “Alter Egos.” It’s by New York Times White House correspondent Mark Landler. And it talks about what a backchannel actually is. Because I want people to understand what that means. And it talks about the then-incoming Obama Administration setting up an actual backchannel through Oman, to try to set up the pre-conditions to have an Iran deal. This was done through the State Department, through Hillary Clinton, the incoming Secretary of State, in which you open up discussions with even an adversarial country, in a way that you do so outside of the public, so they can set conditions up in order to have an Iran deal. … That is a backchannel. Going and meeting in a secure facility of a country to which you have dubious links, including financial, in a secret facility that is theirs, and that is out of the reach of American Intelligence communities is not a backchannel. So, not to correct Ms. Strassel when she isn’t here, but I thought that was very important.”
Joy-Ann Reid takes journalism seriously. If more of our ‘journalists’ reacted to misinformation with the immediacy and urgency displayed by Reid, we would have a much better-informed country.