© MSNBCJoy Reid spoke over, interrupted, and insulted Christopher Rufo during their debate.
After accepting Manhattan Institute senior fellow Christopher Rufo's requests via Twitter to appear on her MSNBC show, host Joy Reid declined to engage in a debate on the topic of critical race theory — resorting instead to constant interruption and insults, insisting, "it's my show ... so it's how I want to do it."
The host of "The ReidOut" — who initially called Rufo's tweeted requests for a debate "a weirdly aggressive way to get yourself on TV" — began the interview Wednesday evening by addressing their online spat, calling Twitter a "hyperbole zone" before asking why he deserved to be on her program.
"But I just want to just get to a couple of little factual things," Reid said before asking a series of questions about Rufo's qualifications to debate critical race theory at all.
"Why would I need courage to have you on? Are you, like, an expert in race or racial history? Are you a lawyer? Are you a legal scholar? Is that part of your background?"
Rufo, given the opportunity to speak for the first time, replied by saying, "Yes, I'm a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, where I'm running their initiative on critical race theory. And the reason that I reached out on Twitter to you — and I appreciate you having me on — [is that] I enjoy this kind of cross-partisan dialogue."
The Manhattan Institute is a center-right think tank, not a hardline political group.
Rufo went on to say that Reid's previous comments about him on her show — "which I think is fine. It's politics, that's fair game," he noted — framed him and his views incorrectly.
Reid quickly took issue with his use of the word "attacking" to describe how she talked about him, interrupting him to say, "Well, one second, just — I wasn't attacking you. I was reading your quote. So that's what I did. I read your quote. But go on."
"Sure, but you were reading it with the framing, calling me a political operative, which I'm not. I'm actually a think-tank scholar."
With the two now aware of each other's qualifications to discuss the matter, the pair could finally start debating.
Rufo explained, "The problem that I have is that you have really spread four, I think, key false pieces of information about critical race theory."
His four issues, he told Reid, included her claims that CRT was not being taught in schools; that most American students have been taught "Confederate race theory," which portrays slavery as "not so bad"; that state legislation will "prevent" schools from teaching about racism's history; and lastly that it isn't rooted in Marxism.
"I think that all four of those claims are wrong and I would love to discuss them tonight," the critical race theory opponent remarked, just moments before Reid argued that he was, in fact, a political operative because lawmakers like Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) had begun using some of his talking points.
After that, sparring went on for a minute or so, with Reid defending Ibram X. Kendi's "How to Be an Antiracist," which says that "the only remedy to past discrimination is present discrimination."
Eventually, Rufo replied, "Joy, let me respond. This is not a monologue. This should be a dialogue, right?"
"Well, it's my show. So it's how I want to do it," Reid replied, smiling.
After some more bickering about a who's who of major names attached to CRT, Reid addressed the constant interruptions on her part by calling Rufo's comments "lies."
"You probably never watched me on TV. Just we didn't know who each other were not so long ago," she began.
"But I don't allow people to just make up and say lies on the show. It's just not really right to do that and let people hear-" she continued, being cut off by Rufo, who replied "Yes, sure," before chiding his interruption.
"But let me at least get a full sentence in," Rufo replied. "Am I right or wrong?"
"What you're doing here is you're playing a series of word games. I'm not going to let you keep playing word games," he added before pleading with the MSNBC host to "let me respond at least once. I haven't even gotten a full sentence out."
As for why she was continuing her interruptions, Reid replied, "Because I'm not going to let you ... I don't allow people to just make up insane lies on this show. It's just not really right to do that."
After then playing what Rufo described as a "highlight reel" of comments he had made about his role and opposing CRT, Reid and the Manhattan Institute senior fellow continued to spar, with her repeatedly refusing his requests to finish a sentence.
After Rufo said he was "fighting against the manipulation of language" and "language deconstruction ... because, otherwise, you just say whatever you want, and then you back away from it, and you dance around it," Reid said she thought he was defining multiple things as being under the critical race theory umbrella.
"I actually appreciate that you said that, because, Christopher, what you basically — and you admit it yourself, that you have taken all of these sort of wokeness moments, corporate wokeness, the corporate sort of woke money, woke capital, the things that annoy conservatives, and you have stuffed it all into the name critical race theory."
"It's really like — it's like Christopher Rufo theory. You stuffed it all in."
At the end of the interview, Rufo jokingly called Reid the "most prestigious Christopher Rufo theory scholar in the world."
"I hope that next time, you at least give me a chance to complete two sentences."
Comment: Good luck trying to understand Rufo's points. Reid didn't let him complete two sentences in a nine-minute segment. Any time he gets too close to making a solid point, she cut him off, playing the 'this is my show' card.