Movie director Rob Reiner Thursday ended up in a heated argument with MSNBC's
"Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski after accusing the nation's news media of not asking tough enough questions of presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump.
"The words that have been flung out from his mouth are insane," Reiner, who strongly supports Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton, told the show, while accusing the media of only taking Trump's candidacy seriously because he is a celebrity.
"The words that come out of his mouth, you'd see a guy in a park, a lunatic in a park on a soapbox and you'd walk right past him."
And when he was asked if he'd be one of the Democrats who plan to back Trump, Reiner joked that "I actually burned my Democratic card, I'm now a Trump — no, what, are you crazy? The guy is a lunatic."
But Reiner, who became famous playing the role of conservative Archie Bunker's "meathead" liberal son-in-law on the 1970s TV sitcom "All in the Family," said there are two messages that he wanted to put out.
"Number one, Hillary is the most qualified person to be president in my lifetime, and I'm pretty damn old," said Reiner, telling Scarborough and Brzezinski that their show and MSNBC has been doing a "great job," there is still a "profit center in news" that's been known since "60 Minutes" became a hit in the 1960s.
"This is a talk show, this is we're having conversation, it's not hard news, not claims to be hard news, and yet hard news is presented . . . What I'm saying is, we have to start — you had Bob Woodward on your show at one point.
"I remember him saying, 'we have to hold these people accountable, we have to ask those tough, second, third, fourth and fifth year questions.'"
And he also praised Chris Matthews for holding Trump "accountable on his position on abortion . . . It was the most revealing thing that happened during this entire campaign season."
But the fact that Trump is a celebrity makes the media interested, Reiner said.
Scarborough and Brzezinski insisted that they have often pinned Trump down, with Scarborough reminding Reiner that he once
hung up on Trump over the Muslim deportation issue.
"Would you like me to actually get on top of him and pin him down with my knee?" Scarborough asked him while Brzezinski wanted to know if Reiner wanted her to "maybe stick my heel down his throat and tell him he's not answering the question."
Reiner also accused many of Trump's supporters "but not all" of being racists.
"If you're a candidate and you've been one and you are standing there and there are people in your rally who are KKK members, members of the Aryan nation, white supremacists, if I were you, I would say, 'I don't really want that support,'" Reiner said.
"That's hate speech and hate mongering. I don't want that support. I don't see Donald Trump saying 'I don't want that support.'"
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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