November 18, 2017

There was a bit of a rumble on AM Joy this morning. If there's anyone who has no patience with evangelical hypocrisy, it's Joy Reid.

Alabama pastor Mark Burns tried to sell Joy on the virtues of Roy Moore as a moral leader, and questioned the credibility of the victims who have come forward.

"You're telling me that you don't find -- you find Roy Moore more credible than them?" Reid asked.

"I do find the fact that Roy Moore has served faithfully for over 40 years publicly in public office and these women had plenty of opportunity, plenty of opportunities, Joy, to come out and it is suspicious when you -- and I think the great people of Alabama are realizing that, which is why the majority of Alabamians are still going to vote for Roy Moore, even the governor, even the women that stepped up and said we're still supporting Roy Moore, because their understanding, it is extremely suspicious that this is all coming out after he's become the candidate for -- "

"We have a woman on this panel. You can't filibuster the whole segment," Reid said.

"Sarah, you just had a pastor, Pastor Mark Burns, say these women, because they're new, because no one has ever heard of them, because they're not famous and Roy Moore has been in public life for a very long time, including when he was a prosecutor calling the high school to get a girl out of trig class that he wanted to date."

Republican operative Sarah Drumpf pointed out that the women did not come forward, Washington Post reporters heard the rumors and tracked them down.

"There's no conspiracy here. The women's and reporters' stories are all on the record and all matches up. Second, the idea that we're going to discredit these women because they don't have the prominence of Roy Moore, that is how Roy Moore and Harvey Weinstein and Bill O'Reilly and all the rest of these predators have been getting away with it for so long: because they were in a position of power and the women were afraid of social and professional and cultural consequences," Rumpf said.

She noted how many of the girls were vulnerable and from broken homes.

Reid then showed the women who have accused Donald Trump of sexual misconduct. She asked former evangelical Frank Schaeffer if he'd ever seen anything like it.

"One thing I've never heard of is a man accused by this many people, that white evangelical Christians, 83% of them, then go out and vote for because they have traded a lust for power and revenge on what they regard as a liberal elite for the least vestige of moral principle," Schaeffer said.

He talked about making movies in Hollywood, and said he didn't have a sheltered life.

"Look, I went to a boys school. Those were not the days. Jerks, creeps behavior like this. We have a creep for a president," he said.

"And one thing that I think we just need to make very clear, what a sad day that we're sitting here on television talking together about a time of history when spiritual revival and any real sense of spirituality, decency and goodness is so far away, we are parsing the details, comparing a president who is sitting in office right now in the Oval Office, not even to mention the Russia connection, the fact that his accusations coming out the kazoo of everything from money laundering to handing the Chinese sweetheart deals because you're related to the president, forget all that.

"We're sitting here talking with a couple of pastors and the son of an evangelical leader about who put whose hand up some someone's skirt on an airplane. Who fondled a teenager," he said with obvious disgust.

"Look, I get up every day and care for three grandchildren of mine, ages 9, 7 and 3. They are my heart, all right? I am trying to send them into a world that is so bankrupt in our country now of spiritual value and morality that I despair."
 

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