MSNBC’s Joy Reid likes to fashion herself as a good race and gender conscious progressive, which is why it was weird when she declared on Monday’s edition of The ReidOut that it was natural that Donald Trump said he admires President William McKinley because the 1890s were a time that was “only great for men like Donald Trump.” At the same time, Reid had nice things to say about segregationist Woodrow Wilson.
Trump’s admiration for McKinley comes from the latter’s support of tariffs, but Reid made sure to add, “McKinley's presidency wasn't just about tariffs. It was also about empire. After an explosion on a U.S. battleship called the Maine, that was later found to be just a structural failure, not sabotage, the U.S. launched a war against Spain to take Cuba, Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines out of their empire and put the latter three into ours.”
Reid also argued Trump’s view of McKinley’s record is incorrect because McKinley “updated his attitude from ‘Tariffs, tariffs, tariffs’ to something called reciprocity.”
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