Chris Hayes showed some of the lengths he would go to to tow MSNBC’s party line, on Tuesday, when he was so desperate to cover for Hamas that he defended the terror organization putting weapons under civilian centers, seemingly arguing Gaza was too small to put them anywhere else. In his interview that night on All In, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Hayes felt the need to scoff at the Senator’s condemnation of the practice.
Schumer, himself a two-state-solution advocate and no fan of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, expressed deep concern about the spike in overt anti-Semitism in America since the beginning of the war, and how little issue had been made of it.
Hayes, though, said that the thing that “struck him” was the “conflation between” October 7 and Israel’s reaction:
[T]here's these sort of two periods here. There's the trauma of October 7th, which is the worst mass-killing of Jews since the Holocaust, and, just horribly traumatic (…) And then there's what happens afterwards in the protest movement. And it just seems to me there's a little conflation between what I think was shown in the polling and generally a very, very small active support for Hamas in the wake of that. And then the protest movement that grows up as 50,000 people, including 15,000 children, are killed with American bombs.
Hayes was already ignoring the very strong, overt anti-Semitic element that had never ceased to be prevalent in the leftist protest movements on college campuses, but, while saying he “ached for” innocent civilians who were suffering.
On top of that, Schumer reminded Hayes of Hama’s well-documented use of human shields:
[W]hat's underplayed totally is the role of Hamas in that tragedy, even afterwards. Hamas uses, by doctrine, the innocent Palestinians as human shields. They put rockets in hospitals, they put schools there… The late head of Hamas said these Palestinians who were killed are necessary sacrifices. His words. The media doesn't play it up, and the world doesn't realize the difficult position Israel is in, trying to make sure that Hamas doesn't come back… I don't know any other country that has used people as human shields the way Hamas has (...)
Hayes deflected the point by broadly asserting that any insurgent army would have done that, because, he said “They’re always amongst the populace.”
“Never the same way,” Schumer responded; noting that it’s an integrated part of Hamas’s fighting doctrine:
It's not a policy the way it is with Hamas- rockets in hospitals, and using humans as human shields. But what I'm saying is, the media, they showed, every day, pictures of Palestinians being hurt, and we ache for that. They almost never mentioned that a lot of these were human shields, a lot of them.
Rather than just breaking down and conceding that using civilian schools and hospitals as military shields was bad, all Hayes could do was scoff: “What does that even mean? The size of Gaza is less than- it's basically Manhattan and it's got 2 million people in it.”
His analogy wasn’t even correct either. Manhattan was 22.66 square miles, while Gaza was almost seven times larger at 141 square miles.
Apparently, Chris Hayes’ allegiance to MSNBC’s status quo ran so deep that he would resort to outrageous mental gymnastics to rationalize a terrorist group’s barbarism even against their own people.
To view the full transcript, click "expand" to read:
MSNBC’s All In With Chris Hayes
03/18/2025
8:33 PM
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: CHUCK SCHUMER ON ANTI-SEMITISM IN AMERICA]
CHRIS HAYES: But here's- here's the thing that struck me in reading your book, is that, it seems to me there's these sort of two periods here. There's the trauma of October 7th, which is the worst mass-killing of Jews since the Holocaust, and, just horribly traumatic both- if it were any people happening with no 5000-year history, and extra-traumatic with the 5000-year history.
SENATE MINORITY LEADER CHUCK SCHUMER: Right.
HAYES: And then there's what happens afterwards in the protest movement.
And it just seems to me there's a little conflation between what I think was shown in the polling and generally a very, very small active support for Hamas in the wake of that-
SCHUMER: Well-
HAYES: And then the protest movement that grows up as 50,000 people-
SHUMER: But let me-
HAYES: -including 15,000 children, are killed with American bombs.
SCHUMER: And I ache for them. I see this kid- picture of a kid with no legs. I ache, I see this little girl whose parents were killed, Palestinian- I ache.
But, what's underplayed totally is the role of Hamas in that tragedy, even afterwards. Hamas uses, by doctrine, the innocent Palestinians as human shields. They put rockets in hospitals, they put schools there-
HAYES: Right-
SCHUMER: Wait. The head of- The late head of Hamas said these Palestinians who were killed are necessary sacrifices. His words.
HAYES: They've said it-
SCHUMER: The media doesn't play it up, and the world doesn't realize the difficult position Israel is in, trying to make sure that Hamas doesn't come back, because we know what Hamas would do again, because Hamas has been so-
I don't know any other country that has used people as human shields the way Hamas has at least-
HAYES: Isn’t any insurgent- Vietcong- any insurgent army-
SCHUMER: Never the same way. Never the same way.
HAYES: Really?
SCHUMER: I don't believe so. I don't believe so. Insurgent armies sometimes run into trouble that way. But it’s not about-
HAYES: But they're always amongst the populace. That's the way-
SCHUMER: But it’s not a policy-
HAYES: That's the way an insurgent army operates.
SCHUMER: It's not a policy the way it is with Hamas- rockets in hospitals, and using humans as human shields.
But what I'm saying is, the media, they showed, every day, pictures of Palestinians being hurt, and we ache for that. They almost never mentioned that a lot of these were human shields, a lot of them.
HAYES: What does that even mean? If there's- the size of Gaza is less than- it's basically Manhattan and it's got 2 million people in it.
SCHUMER: But Chris, but Chris, all I'm saying is, a good amount of the blame for the tragedy here, which we hate-
I think Israel didn't have the right policies in certain areas, and I was not- took- I criticized them regularly, you know.
But no one seems to mention- When I see these protesters, I say: Well what about Hamas? They ignore them. Ignore them.
So there's only one side to this, and that's not fair.
