MSNBC host: Obama's huge 60th birthday bash was 'terrible message'
MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski says former President Barack Obama's star-studded 60th birthday party sent the wrong message amid a surge in COVID cases.
MSNBC host Mika Brzezinski dinged former President Barack Obama's star-studded 60th birthday party as "unbecoming" and a "terrible message" for Democrats on Monday.
Obama's Martha's Vineyard birthday party – which was slightly "scaled back" due to coronavirus concerns but still had hundreds of guests – was late-night fodder for the likes of HBO's Bill Maher, but Brzezinski said it "does seem a bit unbecoming or out of step" with the delta variant causing a coronavirus case surge.
New York Times reporter Annie Karni defended it as a party planned months ago in anticipation that COVID-19 cases would continue to dwindle, but she noted that apparently, "significantly scaled back" for Obama still meant a large crowd congregating and dancing at tents outside his ritzy estate.
"The people who got cut, according to my reporting, were a lot of the former administration officials who really credit themselves with building the legacy that allows Obama to enjoy the post-presidency popularity among this crowd and there were some raw feelings about what looked like a two-tier system," Karni said. "But in the end, he had the big party, there were mixed feelings about whether that was a good look for Democrats, for Obama himself, and we learned that significantly scaled back did not mean a dinner party with 12 close friends and his family."
"No. In fact, very high-level Democrats, folks in the White House even, were pretty upset about this," Brzezinski said. "It’s sending a terrible message that the party doesn’t need right now, for sure."
Celebrities like Jay-Z, Beyonce, and Bradley Cooper made the cut in spite of the surge in cases, and a lot of Obama supporters were left disappointed, Karni reported. The same correspondent raised eyebrows over the weekend when she relayed one defender's assessment that the Obama partygoers were a "sophisticated, vaccinated" group.
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However, Karni also noted celebrities like Chrissy Teigen who attended come with a "hair and makeup team" that someone like David Axelrod, a former Obama adviser who wasn't allowed, wouldn't bring with them on the island.
Some residents of the ritzy Massachusetts enclave were upset with the party, while others said if people were tested and vaccinated, any outrage over Obama's party was overblown, Karni added.