Mika Brzezinski voiced renewed skepticism Monday over the growth of the #MeToo movement, saying there has been a lack of honesty in public discourse over the issue of sexual harassment.
She also defended men unfairly whom she said have been swept up in the mania.
“Men are not the only aggressors. Men are not the only people with bad intentions. Men are not the only people who play dirty,” said Brzezinski on “Morning Joe.” “We’ve only talked about women as perfect victims.”
Brzezinski added that she had had many “honest” conversations about #MeToo at “dinner tables” but that discussing the issue in public remained dangerous.
“I’ve had incredible conversations with women and men over dinner tables where we’ve been amazingly honest about how complicated this really is,” she said. “But you try and say it in a public forum and, boy, you get burned at the stake in a way that almost feels like we’re back in time.”
Axios chief Mike Allen speculated that the reason for the public/private disfluency lay in the fact that nobody knew how MeToo would ultimately shake out and people were hedging their bets.
“With gay marriage we knew where that was headed. With race we know where we should be,” said Allen. “But with this, nobody knows what the safe place is going to be, nobody knows what the sensible place is going to be. Nobody knows what the orthodox is going to be.”
It’s not the first time that “Morning Joe” — and Brzezinski — have taken on the MeToo totems.
In the past, Brzezinski has said she wasn’t sure if all women should be believed, and also warned that she knew men who would not hire women going forward because of the movement.
Watch above.