MSNBC “Morning Joe” co-host Mika Brzezinski said Friday gender played a role in the now-dropped charges against Donald Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, and argued that the female reporter who accused him of grabbing her may have done women a disfavor.
Brzezinski said Friday morning that the charges against Lewandowski were “a joke from the beginning” and that there was an uncomfortable element to the story that media and political observers were afraid to discuss.
“I don’t like what happened,” she said. “I’m just going to be very careful but I think women have a responsibility to make sure that we bring to the table valuable credibility, and I think something that is sort of hard to talk about happened here. And I’m not going to push it forward and lead to anymore problems. But this was a joke from the beginning. It was.”
Brzezinski, who has written books on women’s empowerment, said she was “surprised” at some who have maintained that the reporter involved in the matter, Michelle Fields, was the victim of physical violence.
“I mean, listen, she obviously over exaggerated the extent to which she was pulled down,” said Huffington Post reporter Sam Stein in response to Brzezinski. He said, however, that Lewandowski should have apologized for having grabbed Fields.
Donnie Deutsch, a marketing executive and frequent guest on the program, said that had Fields been a man, she would have been “harassed, harangued” for complaining that her arm was grabbed during a Trump campaign event.
“I’m going to tell you right now, a lot worse has happened to me in a press scrum,” said Brzezinski. “And I mean a lot worse.”
The incident took place in March at a Trump event in Florida. Videos of it show that Fields, formerly of Breitbart.com, approached the Republican candidate to ask a question and Lewandowski grabbed her arm to move her aside.
Florida authorities said Thursday that they could not, in good faith, pursue criminal charges.
Trump has stood by Lewandowski, saying he would not fire him. In an interview on Fox News last night, Lewandowski said he planned to “double efforts” to elect his boss.
Fields did not return a request for comment from the Washington Examiner.
