Every once in a while, an MSNBC host briefly messes up and upsets a famous Democrat. It happened on Friday in Rome during an otherwise typical softball pitch. Former Secretary of State John Kerry is used to interviews like Jen Psaki going out for an ice cream bar with him. After a gushfest over the late Pope Francis on the “climate crisis,” anchor Chris Jansing noted under Obama and Kerry, Putin invaded Ukraine and took Crimea.
“He was a powerful voice for peace. He talked about the war in Ukraine. He talked about the war in Gaza. You were Secretary of State when Russia annexed Crimea,” Jansing said. “And I want to ask you…”
“When they stated they were,” Kerry interrupted. “We did not allow them to annex it. And we stood and we stood up against it and called it against international law.”
Jansing quickly pivoted after this apparent faux pas: “They stated…Right. They said it is….”
Kerry was still objecting: “Yeah, they said it, but under international law, that does not make it theirs.” So when Stalin took over the Baltics and Eastern Europe after World War II, it wasn’t really under Soviet control? Or as RedState noticed one wisecracker tweeted, “We only let Russia annex Crimea in reality, not on paper.”
The Democrats’ 2004 presidential nominee did give Trump credit for trying to end the war.
Before that, Jansing drew attention to a Pope Francis declaration on climate: “He said humanity was turning the glorious creation of Earth into a wasteland full of debris, desolation and filth.”
Kerry went on and on about how the planet is…going to Hell. “It’s really interesting, too, that this man of faith who is here to speak about the faith of the church and some of the beliefs which are obviously based on faith, not evidence. But in the case of the climate crisis, it’s all based on evidence. It’s not a matter of faith what is happening. It’s a matter of mathematics and physics and biology and chemistry. And he knew that and he accepted that. So he isn’t living in some alternative world where he doesn’t understand the components.”
