MSNBC's Joy Reid says Biden COVID diagnosis is 'exactly the same' as Trump getting shot - while branding ex-president's assassination attempt as a 'photo op'

Joy Reid was accused of 'next level desperation' after suggesting that Joe Biden's brush with Covid is as heroic as Donald Trump's defiance in the face of an assassin's bullet.

The MSNBC host was speaking from the Republican National Convention as news broke that the president had cancelled a speech in Las Vegas after testing positive for Covid.

The liberal anchor dismissed the attack on Trump as a 'photo-op', and seemed dismayed at the contrast drawn by delegates between the president's frailty and his challenger's vigorous response to being shot.

'Should he (Biden) be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing?' she demanded.

The answer appeared to be a resounding no from many on social media where Reid was ridiculed for 'mental gymnastics'.

'Wow... talk about reaching,' wrote one.

Joy Reid was appearing live from the RNC in Milwaukee when she made her startling claim 

She seemed furious that Donald Trump was allowed to signal his defiance to fans after being shot in the head at his rally in Butler, Pennsylvania on Saturday evening 

The Brooklyn-born Harvard graduate was sharing a panel with Biden's former press secretary Jen Psaki and fumed at the Secret Service for not stopping photographers from reporting that Trump was still alive in the seconds after he was shot at Saturday's rally in Butler, Pennsylvania.

'These two men are both elderly,' she observed.

'Donald Trump is an elderly man who for whatever reason was given nine seconds to take an iconic photo-op during an active shooter situation.

'Weird situation, we'll figure that out some day.

'But his survival of that and bouncing right back and going right to his convention is being conveyed in the media world as a sign of strength,' she complained.

'This current president of the United States is 81 years old and has Covid. Should he be fine in a couple of days, doesn't that convey exactly the same thing?

'That he is strong enough, older than Trump, to have gotten something that really used to be fatal to people his age?

'So if he does fine out of it and comes back and is able to do rallies isn't that exactly the same?'

'It should!' Psaki agreed.

The MSNBC host said that Joe Biden (pictured shortly before Wednesday's Covid diagnosis) would show equal strength if he recovers from his latest illness 

As he boarded Air Force One maskless for the flight back to the East Coast to begin isolation, he gave a thumbs' up and said: 'I feel good'

The president seemed to make light of his diagnosis in a fundraising tweet minutes later

The president followed up the announcement of his latest health worry on Wednesday afternoon with a cryptic tweet reading: 'I'm sick'.

Three minutes later, he added: 'of Elon Musk and his rich buddies trying to buy this election.'

Later, he gingerly boarded Air Force One, using the shorter of the two sets of stairs, for a flight home to Delaware to begin isolation.

Biden, who was not wearing a mask, gave a thumbs up from his vehicle before boarding, and said: 'I feel good'.

In an interview this week, Biden said he would only respond to increasing demands from Democrat lawmakers to drop out of the race for the White House if doctors told him to and there was a medical reason that made it necessary.

'If I had some medical condition that emerged, if somebody, if doctors came to me and said, you got this problem and that problem,' Biden said in an interview with BET news.

Trump meanwhile is due to deliver his keynote speech to the RNC on Thursday evening after receiving a rapturous reception from delegates during his first appearance on Monday.

He was there to see model Amber Rose deliver a speech praising him for his support to black people, remarks which also infuriated the MSNBC host who was accused of 'race baiting' after sneeringly dismissing the model as 'racially ambiguous'.

'I don't want to say she's black because she has said she's not,' Reid claimed.

'This woman who is of whatever race that she has claimed, she's said she's not Black, but [the RNC] brought somebody whose whole career is based in Black culture.'

'Her whole culture came from Black culture, even though she said she's not a Black person herself.

Reid's remarks came after she was accused of 'race-baiting' over model Amber Rose's speech to RNC delegates on Monday 

Amber Rose waved to the Republican National Convention crowd in Milwaukee Monday night after announcing her support for the candidacy of former President Donald Trump 

Former President Donald Trump, who officially became the Republican nominee earlier Monday, made a brief appearance at the end of the RNC's first day and grinned while Amber Rose spoke 

'The fact that she is now the person they're using to try to recruit young people of color and to say that this is the person who is the endorser of Donald Trump who you should trust when she won't even claim the culture that brought her to the table, I'm dubious that this will work.'

The model, who used to date rapper Kanye West, hit back at the host insisting 'I've never said I wasn't Black'.

'I said I identify as biracial,' she added in a now-deleted tweet.

'I'm not going to invalid my white father to make you feel more comfortable.

'Stop being a race baiter ur president does enough race baiting for all of us.'