Scott Baio, the actor famous for his portrayal of Chachi Arcola on the hit sitcoms Happy Days and its spin-off, Joanie Loves Chachi, has seen a small revival of fame this political season. Baio has gone all in on his support for Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.
That support landed him a spontaneous invitation to speak at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio this week, but it also landed him in front of MSNBC’s Tamron Hall.
Fair warning: Ms. Hall was ruthless.
And she left him stuttering.
Baio opened himself up to the verbal mauling by beating on the classic “holier than thou” drum, saying he wrote his speech in church on Sunday and by saying that America needs to return to faith.
Hall seized on the opportunity to remind Baio about some of his more misogynistic tweets, particularly tweets about Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama. She said:
“Let’s talk about your speech. I know you said you went to church and you’ve talked about your religion. One of things that caught my eye was this tweet that you sent out July 10. A photo of Hillary Clinton standing in front of the word ‘count.’ The ‘O’ is blocking so that it appears that she is standing in front of the C-word. Did you think about that in church?
Baio backpedaled saying that he simply put the tweet out there without commentary.
Here is one of the tweets:
https://twitter.com/ScottBaio/status/752324486276403200
But Hall was having none of it. She pressed again:
“You talk about religion coming back to this country and us having a moral barometer. Where was your moral compass when you put a photo of a woman that you disagree with politically?”
With Baio still reeling, she moved on to another tweet that Baio had sent. This time it was an unflattering picture of Michelle Obama that Baio captioned with:
“Wow he wakes up to this every morning.”
Here is the photo, though he has apparently deleted the tweet.
Baio tried to explain it away by saying it was just a joke. Hall’s response was priceless:
“Does joking about a woman in that way make America great again?”
Baio’s lame defense was that he’s a guy from Brooklyn who smokes cigars with his buddy. Watch the entire exchange here and bring your popcorn. It’s well worth it.
