Normally, MSNBC’s meteorologist Bill Karens is a somber 60-second presence on the Morning Joe show. Then, something happened that turned this nonpolitical man of science into a walking outrage before people’s very eyes. That was when they realize you do not mess with science.
Karins fact-checked Donald Trump’s inaccurate weather reporting. He was especially offended that the president had used outdated weather maps. Even worse, POTUS dared to change the results of that map with his trusty Sharpie pen to inaccurately include Alabama in the hurricane path, which is a crime by the way.
Rather than admit his mistake, the supposed leader of the free world just took his Sharpie, and like a fifth-grader changed the map to try to cover his mistake. It was a big insult to American’s intelligence and an embarrassment on the world stage.
Trump said that Hurricane Dorian would “most likely” hit Alabama “harder than expected. much harder than anticipated:”
‘Let me take you into this map. So Sept. 1, 8 a.m. in the morning, is when he tweeted and added Alabama to the states that are increasing in risk. That’s when this whole thing started, when that tweet came out this was the forecast, with not Alabama in it. this was the official forecast that should have been in a little document.’
Then, the president pulled out an outdated map that Karins fact-checked:
‘He said this was the forecast map that made him say Alabama was in the path, and these are all the computer models, the spaghetti, they even go into Louisiana and Mississippi. Looks horrible, right? Then I looked closer down here and the data that was Aug. 28, four days before he sent the tweet. So then I said why would he send a map out four days in advance?’
The meteorologist pulled out the big guns for his next line:
‘See, this is science — we actually do have the data,” he added. “Isn’t that amazing?’
After that, Karins replaced the doctored map with ones that clarified the anticipated path:
‘We could actually fact check this. Hours before the tweet these were what the lines looked like, none into Alabama. Twenty-four hours before, none of the lines go into Alabama. Let’s go 48 hours before, almost into Alabama. How about 72 hours before the tweet. now we’ve got something, a couple go there, but that’s not good enough. let’s make it look better and do 96 hours, on the 28th. This is the map he sent out.’
Karins was wound up by that time, saying that Trump had lied and told lies to cover up those lies, or he had not looked at the maps for four days — a dereliction of duty:
‘Here is your choice. We can either believe the whole kindergarten, changing the number 62 to an 82 (trick), or maybe he actually did go four straight days without being briefed or looking at the updates on the hurricane, and he did believe that what he saw.’
Then, the meteorologist asked the real question:
‘Which one is worse?’
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