On Friday afternoon, MSNBC host Katy Tur was again doing her part to promote voting for Democrats as she gave liberal actor Billy Eichner a forum to push the get-out-the-vote efforts of his left-wing Swing Left group.
She gave no pushback as he ranted against President Donald Trump and suggested that Republican voters are racists.
As the liberal actor recalled that his group trains liberal activists on how to do phone banking to target Democratic-leaning voters, he cracked:
But you're not calling Trump voters and getting into arguments, you know, trying to convince them to miraculously become less racist over the next four days, you know. You're just calling people who tend to vote Democratic, who lean Democratic, who have voted for Democrats in the past, but might have questions ... or just to give them that extra little push -- that extra little bit of encouragement they need to actually get out there and vote. Because it truly is now or never.
Making no objection to her guest calling Trump voters racists, Tur merely followed up:
There are millions of people out there who say it doesn't matter if they vote, that Washington doesn't change their lives. There are people that believe that -- there are millions of people in this country who do not vote. There's 4.4 million people who didn't vote in 2016 that voted in 2012. When you come across a person who says that to you, that it doesn't matter, what's your message?
After condemning President Trump's ability to handle the pandemic, he shifted his rant to the Supreme Court and claimed the "vast majority" of Americans prefer Biden over Trump:
I make it about science and LGBT rights, which affects me and my community. I make it about the Supreme Court because we have minority rule right now. We have a popular vote that Hillary Clinton won that Biden could possibly very well win again, but Trump could still win the Electoral College and be able to put more justices on the Supreme Court. That has a direct impact on my life as a gay person. It has a direct impact on the lives of he women I know, and it has a direct impact on the vast majority of Americans who would prefer Biden.
Again without offering any challenge, Tur wrapped up the segment by asking her liberal guest to talk about the issue of gerrymanding.
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Relevant transcript follows:
MSNBC Live with Katy Tur
October 30, 2020
2:51 p.m.
BILLY EICHNER, ACTOR: Phone banking is an incredibly effective thing to do, and I want to tell people it's not scary -- it's easy. You sign up for a shift. We teach you how to do it no matter how introverted you are, even if it feels very outside your comfort zone. Right away, you see how easy and effective it is. We don't have people at Swing Left -- obviously we're trying to swing seats left and trying to help Biden win and help Democrats win up and down the ballot.
But you're not calling Trump voters and getting into arguments, you know, trying to convince them to miraculously become less racist over the next four days, you know. You're just calling people who tend to vote Democratic, who lean Democratic, who have voted for Democrats in the past, but might have questions about early voting or their ballot or where to go or how to fill out their ballot or just to give them that extra little push -- that extra little bit of encouragement they need to actually get out there and vote. Because it truly is now or never.
KATY TUR: There are millions of people out there who say it doesn't matter if they vote, that Washington doesn't change their lives. There are people that believe that -- there are millions of people in this country who do not vote. There's 4.4 million people who didn't vote in 2016 that voted in 2012. When you come across a person who says that to you, that it doesn't matter, what's your message?
EICHNER: I make it about the issues because ultimately it's not about the politician -- it's the issues that they represent is what they're fighting for in terms of policy. We get really bogged down in terms of personality and who's charismatic and who's telegenic and who's a good public speaker. And communication is important if you're a politician, but ultimately it's about the policies. Right now, we have one candidate in Joe Biden who believes in science -- who, when a vaccine is ready, will listen to doctors and be competent and intelligent enough to actually be able to administer the vaccine to 350 million Americans. We have a President currently who doesn't believe in science as real, who's trying to play down the vaccine, who can't even handle a rally without his own supporters passing out because of heat in Tampa or cold in Nebraska.
This is not a person that we can trust to administer a vaccine to 350 million Americans because that's what it's going to take to bring COVID rates down and for us to go back to a normal life. So I make it about that -- I make it about science and LGBT rights, which affects me and my community. I make it about the Supreme Court because we have minority rule right now. We have a popular vote that Hillary Clinton won that Biden could possibly very well win again, but Trump could still win the Electoral College and be able to put more justices on the Supreme Court. That has a direct impact on my life as a gay person. It has a direct impact on the lives of the women I know, and it has a direct impact on the vast majority of Americans who would prefer Biden. And the only way to do that is to vote the person in.
TUR: Billy, we have 10 seconds, but you're also talking about gerrymandering, and there are a lot of state house races. Those are the races that decide how states get divided up and who gets into the halls of Congress and the House of Representatives. Give me 10 seconds on that before I got to go.
