Appearing as a guest on Sunday's The Mehdi Hasan Show on MSNBC, liberal columnist Wahajat Ali -- who writes for both MSNBC.com and The Daily Beast -- demonstrated that MSNBC was still the place for crude, racially incendiary vitriol as he accused former U.N. ambassador and GOP presidential candidate Nikki Haley of being a "Manchurian candidate" for "white supremacists." He also charged that she "uses her brown skin as a weapon" against minorities to "launder white supremacist talking points."
The liberal trash talker made his comments as the show's host, Mehdi Hasan, convened a panel of liberal Indian American guests to gripe about Haley, because she was an Indian American who has conservative views on immigration.
After Hasan -- whose family was originally from India -- began the segment by recalling that Haley invoked her own immigrant ancestry but then condemned illegal immigration. The MSNBC host lamented: "What is it with the conservative children of Indian immigrants and their antipathy towards immigration?"
After Hasan and another guest -- Asha Rangappa of the Yale Jackson School of Global Affairs -- argued that Haley's parents benefited from "woke" activists pushing immigration reform in the 1960s, the MSNBC host turned to Ali and asked for his reaction to the GOP candidate announcing her campaign for President: "Will you be cheering on fellow brown American -- fellow child of South Asian immigrants Nikki Haley and what she stands for?"
Ali immediately tore into her:
To quote Zora Neale Hurston, "Not all skinfolk are kinfolk." Nikki Haley instead is the Dinesh D'Souza of Candace Owens. She's the alpha Karen of brown skin. And for white supremacists and racists, she's the perfect Manchurian candidate. And instead of applauding her, I am just disgusted by people like Nikki Haley who know better -- whose parents were the beneficiaries -- as Asha said -- of the 1965 immigration and nationality act -- which passed thanks to those original BLM protesters and the Civil Rights Act.
Adding: "And so I see her and I feel sad, Mehdi because she uses her brown skin as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks. And she uses her brown skin to launder white supremacist talking points..."
In his most recent column on MSNBC.com, Ali declared that the GOP candidate was "trying to pave a lily-white path to the White House."
Earlier in the show, Hasan devoted another segment to attacking Haley over the issue as he argued that she was anti-immigration and not just opposed to illegal immigration. In doing so, he misleadingly hinted at the debunked claim that illegal immigrants who claim to be asylum seekers were not actually illegal immigrants. He also did not inform viewers that the overwhelming majority of asylum seekers lose their cases but will most likely remain in the country illegally way.
This latest example of MSNBC's incendiary speech was sponsored in part by Mercedes-Benz and Wayfair. Their contact information is linked.
Transcripts follow:
MSNBC's The Mehdi Hasan Show
February 19, 2023
8:39 p.m. EasternMEHDI HASAN: In her memoir, (Nikki) Haley even talks about her Indian mother actually supporting Trump for President in 2016 very early on -- yes, the same Trump who wanted to build a wall and made racist remarks about brown people. That's the drawbridge right there.
In many ways, Nikki Haley herself is following in the footsteps of Bobby Jindal -- another son of Indian immigrants, another ex-Republican governor who had fantasies about being the GOP presidential nominee. Jindal --who changed his name to "Bobby" from "Piyush" -- condemned immigration without assimilation as invasion, and became, in the words of the Washington Post, "the new champion" of the tough on immigrants crowd.
(...)
Now, conservative pundits, apologists, will say, "There's nothing wrong with right-wing immigrants or the right-wing children of immigrants wanting to get tough on illegal immigration. Their parents came legally." That's a load of BS.
Number one, the idea that this is all about illegal immigration is just false. There are thousands of people trying but unable to claim asylum at our southern border, and claiming asylum is a legal right under both U.S. and international law.
(...)
8:45 p.m. Eastern
HASAN: Nikki Haley kicked off her 2024 GOP presidential campaign by declaring that she was the proud daughter of Indian immigrants, and then almost immediately after -- as I mentioned before the break -- she was denouncing illegals and calling for more Border Patrol offices. What is it with the conservative children of Indian immigrants and their antipathy towards immigration?
(...)
ASHA RANGAPPA, YALE JACKSON SCHOOL OF GLOBAL AFFAIRS: Nikki Haley's family came here in 1966 -- mine came in 1970. We are all beneficiaries of people who fought for her to make that happen. And for her to not recognize that --
HASAN: Of woke activists, Asha. She's a beneficiary of woke activism. She's a beneficiary of woke activism.
RANGAPPA: Of woke activists, exactly.
HASAN: And it's interesting you mentioned -- you mentioned that the guy in the 1920s who declared himself white -- I mean, there's reporting from a local paper that Nikki Haley once declared herself white on a voter registration form. Waj, your thoughts on this? I mean, you wrote a book about growing up brown in America. Will you be cheering on fellow brown American -- fellow child of South Asian immigrants Nikki Haley and what she stands for?
WAJAHAT ALI, MSNBC.COM COLUMNIST: To quote Zora Neale Hurston, "Not all skinfolk are kinfolk." Nikki Haley instead is the Dinesh D'Souza of Candace Owens. She's the alpha Karen of brown skin. And for white supremacists and racists, she's the perfect Manchurian candidate. And instead of applauding her, I am just disgusted by people like Nikki Haley who know better -- whose parents were the beneficiaries -- as Asha said -- of the 1965 immigration and nationality act -- which passed thanks to those original BLM protesters and the Civil Rights Act.
Her father came here because he was a professor -- he taught at a historically black college in South Carolina. That's how she became the proud American that she is. And yet, what does she do like all these model minorities? Which, by the way, is a strategy of white supremacy to use Asians in particular as a cudgel against black folks. Instead of pulling us up from the bootstraps and pulling others from the bootstrap, we're taught to take your boot and put it on the neck of poor browns, immigrants, refugees, and black folks. And that's what she did in her ad.
And so I see her and I feel sad, Mehdi, because she uses her brown skin as a weapon against poor black folks and poor brown folks. And she uses her brown skin to launder white supremacist talking points...
(...)
HASAN: She's never, Asha, ever addressed or apologized for her previously pro-Confederate flag stance. She, of course, later went on to work for Donald Trump. Just because you're brown or a child of immigrants, doesn't mean you're not able to coddle and enable white supremacy. Your skin color -- your ethnic background isn't a get-out-of-jail free card on this issue, is it?
