Republican strategist Evan Siegfried on Sunday interrupted journalist Maria Hinojosa (more than five times, to be exact) to insist that "binders full of women," a phrase used by Mitt Romney during the 2012 presidential campaign, was not sexist in his opinion.
A panel discussion on MSNBC's AM Joy went off the rails on Sunday after Siegfried claimed that reporters who criticize President Donald Trump are "blurring the lines" between journalism and opinion.
Guest host Jonathan Capehart disagreed.
Capehart argued that "to say the president has lied" is part of the job of journalists.
"We have an administration that every single day has Sarah Sanders out there spewing lies," Hinojosa noted as Siegfried talked over her. "The point is, as journalists, do we not have a responsibility not to just, all we can do is report? ... There is a responsibility that is longstanding of American journalism."
"I think you're missing the point," Siegfried said, cutting off Hinojosa. "It's important to go back and to look at how we got to this situation."
"There are instances that conservatives have felt more and more slighted to the point that they say, 'You know what? When you as a journalist speak, I'm not going to listen to you because I think you're lying,'" he ranted. "I can think of one example is that with Mitt Romney and 'binders full of women.'"
"That was not a sexist, offensive, anti-woman comment," Siegfried insisted. "That was a factual statement of, yes, we have binders full of women. And it was innocuous but built up. It's more crying wolf."
"The wolf is at the door, peeking through the windows at this point," Capehart interjected.
"We have the history of the country in our hands," Hinojosa reminded the panel. "And to consistently clarify, 'This is a lie. It is a lie. Today he is lying.' We have to say that. We cannot just set back and let this be some kind of normality."
Siegfried interrupted Hinojosa again: "Fifteen percent of Americans in the past ten years have said they no longer trust the media."