A comment Donald Trump made Tuesday during his coronavirus briefing is causing reverberations around the country. The president was asked a simple question, off-topic, about Jeffrey Epstein’s alleged co-conspirator Ghislaine Maxwell, a woman who was recently indicted in connection with charges related to sexual abuse and trafficking of minors. While answering the question, he wished her well twice, saying he had met her numerous times. Today, on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Mika Brzezinski summed up what a lot of people are thinking about that reply (watch above):

“You know what, I just want that to sit there for a while. the president at his coronavirus briefing had no doctors, but he wished Ghislaine Maxwell well. I mean, I know that there’s no proven connection in any way, but we’ve shown on this show video of Donald Trump dancing with Jeffrey Epstein and a bunch of girls dancing around him, and he wishes her well.  I’m extremely uncomfortable with what I just heard, and I think everybody should be. And the questions, in this case, need to be asked and asked and asked until they are answered. And I just think it’s very strange that the president would make a comment like that in a case like this.”

And Brzezinski goes on to say that this case is a microcosm for some of Trump’s other behavior:

“I let it sit a little bit after we played that because we have got to stop allowing this shock to wash away on every norm that this president breaks, whether it’s shaking down a foreign government for dirt on a political rival or wishing an accused sex offender whose longtime boyfriend died in jail with thousands of secrets, with enough known about this case to know that there’s something there. There’s no way that comment can be normalized. It was not okay. And time and time again, he breaks through the stop signs that this country put up to create a democracy, to create a society where people are safe and free and trying to get to a place where people are treated equally, and he’s pulling us back in time. He’s pulling us toward the dark side. And yes, this is my opinion speaking here, but I fear that we allow the shock to wear off every time, and we don’t stop and think and do.”

The Washington Post’s Jennifer Rubin echoed these thoughts in an opinion piece today, blaming the media for its “insatiable desire to normalize an entirely abnormal president.”

There is something very peculiar when a White House press corps does not react upon hearing that, and when a fleet of mainstream media reporters and editors does not think it worthy of immediate emphasis. The president of the United States admitted to meeting “numerous times” with an alleged co-conspirator in a child sex ring, and no one asks: How many times? Did you see any underage girls around? If so, did you think it peculiar? Did you ever discuss the girls with Maxwell or Epstein?

Rubin continues, ‘“The telling moment for the media will come when reporters have a chance at the next briefing to follow up on his remark.”