Joy Reid falsely accuses conservative writer of wanting ‘Democrats and minorities’ killed in nuclear war

On Wednesday, MSNBC propagandist Joy Reid came under fire after she accused National Review‘s David French of being reckless on the issue of nuclear war because only “Democrats and minorities” would die if the U.S. were attacked, the Washington Free Beacon reported.

“And the magazine in question is the once-august National Review. We have truly entered the age of insanity when the conservative argument in favor of risking nuclear war is, “don’t worry, it will only kill Democrats and minorities.” Shame on you, @DavidAFrench,” she said on Twitter.

After being called out for misrepresenting French’s article, Reid deleted her tweet, however, it can still be seen here.

Reid apparently took issue with an article French wrote at the National Review, which actually argued quite the opposite of what she claimed.  And contrary to her statement, the article suggests that people should prepare to live, not die.  And the version that is live as of this writing doesn’t even mention “Democrats and minorities.”

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Moreover, we looked to see if there were any archived versions of the article that contained the wording Reid used.  Turns out the earliest archived version we found, dated January 16, does not — meaning that Reid apparently made up the entire claim.

Here’s some of what French actually wrote:

Prepare to live. As tempting as it may be, don’t spend the precious minutes between missile alert and missile impact texting family, sending tearful goodbyes on Snapchat, or attempting to reconcile old grudges. Don’t do it.

First, you have to understand that the odds are overwhelming that you’ll survive an initial blast. Nuclear weapons are devastating, but it’s a Hollywood myth that any individual strike will vaporize an entire American city, much less the suburbs and countryside. You can go to sites like nuclearsecrecy.com to see the blast radius of direct nuclear strikes at various yields.

The bottom line, even if a nuclear weapon as big as the largest North Korea has ever tested were to impact squarely on Manhattan, the vast majority of New Yorkers would survive the initial blast. A strike would devastate central Honolulu but leave many suburbs intact. If the missile misses a city center even by a small amount, the number of initial casualties plunges dramatically.

He also offered sound advise for surviving a potential nuclear strike.

“Time and isolation are your friends. The more walls you can put between yourself and not just the blast but also the fallout, the better. Get in a basement. If you don’t have a basement, get in an interior room. Gather as much food and water as you possibly can and hunker down. Every single hour, every single day you can stay indoors and protected from the elements brings you closer to survival. The radiation threat tends to diminish rapidly,” he added.

Let me state here that as someone who spent the majority of his 10-year Marine Corps career as a Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Defense Specialist, French is correct.

He took Reid to task for her tweet, arguing:

In the annals of misleading and ridiculous tweets, this takes the cake:

1. I did not argue in favor of risking nuclear war.
2. I never said anything like the words in those quotes.
3. I wrote only in favor of prepping for bad events.

Other than that, the tweet’s great. https://t.co/oWpXdnjOpD

— David French (@DavidAFrench) January 17, 2018

Others also hammered Reid:

https://twitter.com/charlescwcooke/status/953764724151382021

No, Joy. Shame on you for thinking Raw Story would present what @DavidAFrench wrote in its proper context which has to do with the radius of a nuclear blast, not Democrats and Republicans.

Read it: https://t.co/NfK6gMk64f https://t.co/4SsYqhCbNA

— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) January 17, 2018

This is not what @DavidAFrench's says – this is a totally unfair characterization of his column. And frankly I'm not surprised your framing has come from Newsweek which is an embarrassment.

Read David's column here: https://t.co/SJaf7Evda4 https://t.co/oA1vdfghF7

— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) January 17, 2018

The Washington Free Beacon said Reid deleted her tweet early Thursday and issued another tweet, explaining:

Taking back my take on this take – the @rawstory writeup doesn't reflect @DavidAFrench's intent and I think @Aunty__Em would probably agree. David and I disagree on almost everything, but my take on this was off track. https://t.co/YARwfhRNRE

— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid ? (@JoyAnnReid) January 18, 2018

Perhaps she should have actually read the article before weighing in…  But hey, this IS MSNBC…

Related:

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• MSNBC’s Joy Reid: Rural Americans ‘the core threat to our democracy’
• MSNBC’s Joy Reid suggests Rep. Steve Scalise deserved to be shot due to conservative record
• Jamie Lee Curtis blames Trump for false missile alarm in Hawaii despite state’s admission to the contrary
• MSNBC hack Joy Reid fails history in xenophobic attack on Trump, wives

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