Today's word of the day: Purge. Sean Hannity has used it, and here Rep. Steve King uses it, much to Joy Reid's chagrin.
A purge is necessary, you see, because there are apparently disloyal minions to the regime in Washington, DC. Terrible holdovers from the Obama administration, and they must be purged because they are sabotaging.
"If i were Donald Trump, I would take a look at all my political appointees, anybody that was an appointment that came from the Obama administration," he said. "I would end that tomorrow morning, or tonight, for that that matter, and then make sure I had people working in all departments of the government loyal to the executive branch."
Why? "This is undercutting the Trump agenda. He has an agenda that's a mandate from the American people. I don't know if he can carry it out with this undercut, eroding the Trump agenda from the inside," he explained.
Joy Reid put a stop to that blather fast. "It sounds to me as if you just suggested a purge, a governmentwide purge from the White House directed by the White House of any staffer who previously worked for the Obama administration," she clarified. "Is that what you're suggesting?"
King responded that he was specifically referring to political appointments, knowing full well that his words would be construed the way he means -- to purge Obama appointees. And the use of the term "purge" was fine with him too, by the way.
Reid shot back that this wasn't simply about political appointments, but "in the case of Donald Trump's conversations with the foreign ambassadors that have leaked out into the press, the understanding is there were no Obama appointees in that room."
She continued, "It was Donald Trump and his own aides. The leaks coming out of this administration are not coming from Obama appointees."
"They're coming from people appointed and brought in by Donald Trump," she repeated forcefully. "What does it say about his administration that apparently his own people are leaking the conversations, his own staff are leaking the conversation, which, by the way are pretty incendiary, some things he's said about foreign leaders. Is he going to purge his own staff, too?"
This of course gave Steve King an opening to snidely suggest that they don't really know if they're Trump people, because so many stories were intended to do harm to Trump and his administration. Maybe, just maybe, "some of it looks like information that was...done under FISA warrants."
Yeah, he said that thing. He went there, subtly backing Trump's unsubstantiated claim that Obama was having him bugged.
"He's got people working for him that don't believe in the Trump mandate," King concluded.
Right after that conversation on MSNBC about purges, Attorney General Jeff Sessions requested the resignations of all remaining U.S. Attorneys working in the Department of Justice.
In case you're inclined to think this is just the normal procedure when one administration takes over for another, the other "purge advocate," Sean Hannity, announced that news on his radio show and then asked, "And when are arrests coming after this?"
So while it is absolutely normal for one administration to replace political appointees with their own, this is not what is going on here. What is happening here, right now, is that they are "purging" the administration of people they consider to be loyalists to the previous administration who are actively trying to do harm to them.
That kind of paranoia hasn't been seen since Nixon.
