We rarely see many segments that would come as a surprise on MSNBC (or MSDNC as Sean Hannity likes to call the network), but yesterday brought us an exception to the rule. It came when former Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to a friendly, softball interview with Katy Tur, one of the talking heads that has traditionally been very friendly to the Democrats. But Pelosi tossed out a claim that was a bridge too far even for Tur. The California Democrat stated that unemployment rates during Joe Biden's presidency are not a concern because Donald Trump "had the worst record of any president" in terms of job losses and unemployment. Tur then made the mistake of attempting to gently point out to Pelosi that all of those things were taking place in the shadow of the pandemic. That's when Pelosi amazingly accused Tur of being a "Trump apologist." (Postmillenial)

Nancy Pelosi cited job numbers under Trump, saying that he was the "worst president" for job loss.

After Pelosi made the comment, Tur pushed back slightly, saying, "That was a global pandemic."

Pelosi then reiterated herself saying, "He had the worst record of any president, we've had other concerns in our country."

"If you want to be an apologist for Donald Trump, that may be your role, but it ain't mine," she added.

Tur responded by saying that she didn't believe anyone could accuse her of being a Trump apologist. That's certainly true. She attacks Donald Trump as viciously as the rest of her colleagues at the most liberal cable news network in the country. But in this rare case, she simply spoke up briefly (and politely) to point out that the job losses during Donald Trump's presidency took place at a rather unique moment in the country's history. Pelosi was having none of it.

Let me first say in an effort to be fair to Nancy Pelosi (not that she deserves it in this case) that there is at least some truth, or near-truth to what she said. An argument could be made that job losses under Herbert Hoover at the start of the great depression were as bad, if not worse than in 2020, at least on a per capita basis. Of course, Hoover didn't have much more control over the conditions that brought on the depression than Trump did with the pandemic, but that's a very long story for another article.

Still, the reality remains that Donald Trump was the President and the person with the ultimate authority when the initial decisions over what to do about the nascent pandemic were made. In that sense, he was "responsible" for the things that happened on his watch. But there is a significant difference between the concepts of "responsibility" and "blame." Trump was "responsible," but blame is typically assigned when someone does something harmful either intentionally or in error in a situation where they should or could have known better but went forward anyway.

That wasn't the case with the pandemic. You will recall that when we first learned the pandemic was on the loose, we didn't even know how or where it originated. The only people who likely knew (we're talking to you, St. Fauci) certainly weren't talking. Some of the supposed greatest experts in the medical field were telling Trump that the novel coronavirus could wipe out tens of millions or even billions unless drastic action was taken, reminiscent of the black plague or the Spanish flu. It was only later that we learned that the mortality rate for COVID was only slightly higher than for serious cases of the common flu and that it would fade once vaccinations and herd immunity among survivors were common.

As for the vaccines, all Trump knew was that we didn't have one and we needed one. When supposed "experts" came along, they told him that they could get one finished at "warp speed" with this newfangled mRNA technology. At this point, we've learned that they likely knew or at least suspected that their concoction wasn't an actual vaccine because it wouldn't prevent the contraction or transmission of the virus in many cases, but nobody told Donald Trump that at the time.

That was the information that Donald Trump - a businessman with no medical training - was given at the time. He moved quickly and issued orders that he was assured would prevent or at least minimize a catastrophe. He didn't know that his advisers had made up everything about "social distancing" out of whole cloth. He wasn't told that the masks being worn by almost everyone were essentially useless against COVID. He likely knew that shutting down the entire economy and closing all of the schools for months or years on end would produce catastrophic results, which they obviously did. But he thought he was saving the country from the next black plague and a massive die-off.

So was he "responsible" for massive job losses? Yes, he was. Was he to "blame" for those results? That seems to be very much not the case. And it is dishonest political opportunism for Nancy Pelosi to suggest otherwise. I will offer a brief, small tip of my hat to Katy Tur for momentarily trying to do the right thing and inject some facts into a blatantly biased and inaccurate conversation.