Appearing on the Tuesday, October 8, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell, MSNBC political analyst Joy Reid, Managing Editor of NBC's TheGrio.com, asserted that Republicans are "taking hostages" and have "shot a hostage" as they "went ahead and shut the government down." She began her over the top metaphor:
The Republican party, to Ari (Melber)'s point, they understand they have unpopular positions. They cannot enact their dream sort of Ayn Randian world through a legislative process. They can't win elections to enact the conservative policies. They think, you know, they might think better of the country, whatever, they believe this is the way it should be. But they cannot do it.
She added:
So they are now essentially taking hostages. But this is beyond a hostage situation. They have shot a hostage. They went ahead and shut the government down. Having done that, you cannot then go to the hostage negotiator and say, "Why won't you talk to me? Why won't you sit down and have a conversation with me?"
Reid concluded:
You shot one of the hostages already. What in anyone's rational thinking makes you believe they wouldn't go ahead and breach the debt ceiling at this point? Several of them are saying it's fine to do that. So we understand these are not people who can be negotiated with because they want fundamentally unpopular policies forced onto the majority in this country and forced even onto the majority of their own party.