The left-wing media continued to Trumpwash the horrific murder of Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on Tuesday’s edition of The 11th Hour. MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle hosted a panel, including a segment on state-federal law enforcement cooperation and the recent stabbing in Charlotte with former Senator Doug Jones (D-AL), and the two of them griped about the kind of attention the murder was receiving, including from President Trump.
Jones compared apples to oranges by referring to a past experience of his when a crime-ridden city reached out for federal support, neglecting the actual instigator of National Guard presence:
When I was the United States Attorney—a long time ago now, 20 something years ago—we had joint federal-state investigations. We had joint federal state—not just that we had task forces, we had folks working together, particularly. We had a program specifically that dealt with illegal guns. We trained local law enforcement officers. That program came because the city of Birmingham came to me and said, “We need help. We need the power of the federal government to help us with this.”
But we were strategic. We had law enforcement agents that were helping to train, working together, investigative agents, using the resources of law enforcement. We didn't call in the National Guard.
Birmingham hadn’t achieved the results it sought out. Good thing the National Guard strategy may be implemented.
Jones continued to ignore the intended purpose of the National Guard’s presence in D.C., cracking down on crime, to which Ruhle appended by indicating the cost of the measure:
JONES: I think I'm glad the president went out to dinner. I go out to dinner all the time in Washington, D.C. A lot of people do, especially when you got Congress in session. The National Guard has been wonderful up there to help spruce up the flowers and to put mulch around the flower beds. But it's ridiculous to have a non-law enforcement, a military agency in there to try to help a crime problem.
RUHLE: And ridiculously expensive, Doug?
JONES: Ridiculously expensive.
Property crime and murders had dropped since the National Guard’s entrance into the nation’s capital. Ridiculously frugal.
Ruhle switched the subject to the recent murder of Ukrainian refugee Zarutska, huffing about the kind of attention it was receiving and giving Jones another opportunity to butcher common sense. Jones’s faux impartiality on the evil of murder was betrayed by injecting Trump into the issue (Click “expand”):
RUHLE: Today, the man accused of killing a 23 year old Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, was charged with a federal crime. This is an absolutely horrific crime. How do you navigate, ensuring that justice is served without allowing this young woman's horrible murder to become hyper-politicized on the national stage?
JONES: Well, unfortunately, it's been the President who's hyper, you know, has gone crazy with this, with this one murder. And it was tragic. It was horrible. I am glad the feds have stepped and investigated this, to make an example. To show that the federal government is doing something other than just patrolling the southern border. That they are actually doing things to help state and local law enforcement in a community. I think that that's a good thing. And they can use the federal government resources.
But the problem you've got and the President's speech about this, the president's comments about this, was just pandering to a base of folks throwing red meat out there to try to use this for political advantage. That is not appropriate. This is the criminal justice system. Even the defendant is-is even, although he is on videotape, he's still under—in this country, in the eyes of the law, innocent until proven guilty.
Blind justice may still stand, but Jones clearly wasn’t.
Jones decided to save the worst for last, speculating that the murder would not have been picked up by the media had the victim been black: "But now this has become such a political issue, that I—and there's so many others. You know, I wonder, I wonder, Stephanie, would this have been such an issue if this hadn't have been a pretty blonde, Ukrainian and was a poor black woman coming up in the subway just trying to get home from a domestic help. Would that have been publicized? I doubt it. I doubt it seriously."
Ironically, even in the face of Jones’s twisted theory that nation’s attention on the Charlotte murder was racially-charged, Ruhle failed to push back.
MSNBC had failed to provide honest coverage of two major stories by allowing politicians to do just that: politic.
The transcript is below. Click "expand" read:
MSNBC’s The 11th Hour
September 9, 2025
11:12:34, p.m. Eastern(…)
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Doug, what do you make of city leaders that say they absolutely want help from federal agents, they welcome it—but an occupation of federal troops isn't the answer in their city?
FMR SEN. DOUG JONES (D-AL): Stephanie, that's been the situation for years. When I was the United States Attorney—a long time ago now, 20 something years ago—we had joint federal-state investigations. We had joint federal state—not just that we had task forces, we had folks working together, particularly. We had a program specifically that dealt with illegal guns. We trained local law enforcement officers. That program came because the city of Birmingham came to me and said, “We need help. We need the power of the federal government to help us with this.”
But we were strategic. We had law enforcement agents that were helping to train, working together, investigative agents, using the resources of law enforcement. We didn't call in the National Guard. And I'm sure you know Washington—look.
I think I'm glad the president went out to dinner. I go out to dinner all the time in Washington, D.C. A lot of people do, especially when you got Congress in session. The National Guard has been wonderful up there to help spruce up the flowers and to put mulch around the flower beds. But it's ridiculous to have a non-law enforcement, a military agency in there to try to help a crime problem.
RUHLE: And ridiculously expensive, Doug?
JONES: Ridiculously expensive.
RUHLE: Today, the man accused of killing a 23 year old Ukrainian refugee in Charlotte, North Carolina, was charged with a federal crime. This is an absolutely horrific crime. How do you navigate, ensuring that justice is served without allowing this young woman's horrible murder to become hyper-politicized on the national stage?
JONES: Well, unfortunately, it's been the President who's hyper, you know, has gone crazy with this, with this one murder. And it was tragic. It was horrible. I am glad the feds have stepped and investigated this, to make an example. To show that the federal government is doing something other than just patrolling the southern border. That they are actually doing things to help state and local law enforcement in a community. I think that that's a good thing. And they can use the federal government resources.
But the problem you've got and the President's speech about this, the president's comments about this, was just pandering to a base of folks throwing red meat out there to try to use this for political advantage. That is not appropriate. This is the criminal justice system. Even the defendant is-is even, although he is on videotape, he's still under—in this country, in the eyes of the law, innocent until proven guilty.
But now this has become such a political issue, that I—and there's so many others. You know, I wonder, I wonder, Stephanie, would this have been such an issue if this hadn't have been a pretty blonde, Ukrainian and was a poor black woman coming up in the subway just trying to get home from a domestic help. Would that have been publicized? I doubt it. I doubt it seriously.
And so, you know, I think people have to see this for what it is. It is a tragedy. They're doing what they should be doing. But don't make—don't make it the kind of national issue that we have. Let the local law enforcement do their jobs.
(…)