I feel like I’m saying this a lot these days, but yesterday was a banner day for absurdity in the news media. Unwilling to even attempt to hide their biases anymore, CNN’s Chris Cuomo and MSNBC’s Joy Reid took to the airwaves in order to engage in a fierce competition for who could give the most asinine take of the day.

Reid delivered the first volley with a hot take about Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema that ignores two major issues. Behold, your intellectual betters in all their glory.

Of course House progressives could easily say to Joe Manchin & Kyrsten Sinema: “fine. Good luck in your midterm elections with zero infrastructure bills to show because if the big bill dies, yours does too.” Those House seats are likely safer than WV & AZ. https://t.co/prfgOXxfV3

— Joy-Ann (Pro-Democracy) Reid 😷 (@JoyAnnReid) September 20, 2021

I hate to break it to Reid, but Joe Manchin nor Kyrsten Sinema aren’t up for re-election in 2022, therefore, they won’t be affected by the lack of passage of either the infrastructure bill or the reconciliation bill. You’d think a primetime “news” host would have some basic knowledge about the political environment she covers, but who am I kidding, this is Joy Reid we are talking about.

Besides, West Virginia is a deeply red state. Why would the conservative voters there, a segment of whom vote for Manchin as an exception, care whether another inflation-busting boondoggle goes through? Heck, Manchin would gain voters if he just said no completely and became a Republican. And while Arizona is more purple, Sinema is also not going to lose votes over the Democrats not getting what they want.

In short, Reid’s tough-girl act makes no sense. She’s so ignorant of the topic she’s discussing that she’s citing leverage that simply doesn’t exist. Nothing would make Manchin happier than for Democrats to save him from having to vote on the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill.

But while Reid’s suggestion might have seemed like the most ill-informed, asinine take of the day, Chris Cuomo was waiting silently in the wings, ready to unleash.

Disgusting: Chris Cuomo accuses mounted Border Patrol agents of being racist, targeting the "brown menace." He suggested one agent looked like he belonged in the "bygone era of slavery." He also spewed the lie that people were "beaten" with "a riding crop." pic.twitter.com/a9zNcu8Alx

— Nicholas Fondacaro (@NickFondacaro) September 21, 2021

This idiotic rant stems from an out-of-context picture that went viral claiming CBP agents were “whipping” Haitian illegal immigrants. In reality, the agent in question is reaching out with his hand while the reins of the horse flap on their own about from all the jostling. That didn’t stop CNN’s most vapid host from still making comparisons to slavery and claiming that the Border Patrol is concerned with the “brown menace.”

What makes this so egregious, though, is that Cuomo said what he said hours after the original report was proven false. Heck, you can look at the picture yourself and see no one is being whipped. Yet, he went on air knowing the truth about what happened and chose to lie about racist CBP agents whipping black people for sport anyway.

And for that reason, I’m going to declare Cuomo the winner here. At least Joy Reid’s ridiculous take was borne out of pure ignorance. Cuomo’s was malicious and disgusting as a purposeful slander of overwhelmed CBP agents. So with that said, congrats to the dumber Cuomo brother on his victory.