MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski ridiculed Sen. John Kennedy (R-LA) for becoming the latest man to underestimate Stacey Abrams.
The Louisiana Republican challenged Abrams to identify provisions in Georgia’s new restrictive voting law that she believes are racist, and he then unsuccessfully scrambled to derail the voting rights activist after she calmly recited a litany of measures that will make it harder for Black voters to cast their ballots.
“Why do people keep underestimating her?” Brzezinski marveled.
Scarborough joked that TV’s Matlock would be disappointed with Kennedy, an Oxford-educated attorney.
“You don’t ask the question if you don’t know the answer,” Scarborough said. “Especially if you’re trying to set somebody up like — and i’ll tell you something else, and maybe it was just the seersucker suits that made him so darned polite with his witnesses, but Sen. Kennedy, former John Kerry supporter, he kept trying to throw her off, he kept trying to interrupt her. He would say, explain it — he would cut her off — it just, seriously, this guy, I guess they don’t teach Matlock at Oxford, because he sure made a mess of things for himself, didn’t he?”
Co-host Willie Geist said Kennedy and other GOP senators got way more than they bargained for in the hearing, and contributor Eugene Robinson said the Louisiana senator was clearly outmatched.
“You better come with more than what our faux Matlock had yesterday — that was a riot,” Robinson said. “I was thinking the same thing — that’s obviously something they don’t teach at the Oxford debating union about dealing with intelligent people, who are just going to — I mean, she mowed him down, basically. It was highly entertaining to watch.”
Brzezinski praised Abrams’ poise in the face of a man repeatedly interrupting and condescending her, and she said Kennedy looked foolish.
“It was a really great example for anybody who sort of is figuring out, how do women develop their voices in this sea of how men do what they do,” Brzezinski said. “She was elegant, she was measured, she kept coming back, and she mowed him down without lifting a finger.”
“Why in the world does anybody keep underestimating this woman? she added. “If you think about it, if you think in the way she turned out the vote in Georgia, the way she turned out the vote saved our country, if you had any concern about [Donald] Trump. I mean, this woman is not to be messed with any way, shape or form, and he was acting as if he was dealing with some neophyte. He was condescending, he was arrogant, he was a moron.”