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Music

Watch a MSNBC Dork Use Rick Ross' "9 Piece" to Explain Russian Indictments

MSNBC's Ari Melber quoted the Teflon Don to a panel of middle-aged white people.
KC
Queens, US

Over the weekend, Robert Mueller, the Justice Department's special counsel, indicted 13 Russian nationals in connection with collusion in the 2016 presidential election. Although the White House denies collusion ever happened, Mueller assembled a grand jury to investigate the relationship between President Trump and any ties to Russia. According to CNN, of the 13 nationals, three are charged with conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud, while five are facing charges of aggravated identity theft. MSNBC anchor, Ari Melber, wanted to make the allegations a lot more digestible, so what better way to do that than to quote the Teflon Don?

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"It reminds me, if I may, of the rapper Rick Ross who has a line where he says, 'Shoebox, no shoes in it.' The implication is there's drugs in the shoebox," he says to a flustered panel of political pundits. Melber points to Mueller's evidence against the Russian nationals, a list of empty accounts which the special counsel links to the charges of wire fraud and identity theft.

Melber isn't new to this, he's been quoting rappers like they're his best friends since 2016. When reflecting on whether on not he'd continue to fuse rap and politics he said he wanted "people [to] remember that you have to fight for your right to party and… fight for your rights to a constitutional democracy with checks and balances," he said in an interview with XXL.

We don't care if you're going to borrow lyrics from JAY-Z or Drake, just don't be so corny about it—and for God's sake, don't explain the bar.

Kristin Corry is a staff writer at Noisey. Follow her on Twitter.