Appearing on MSNBC Live With Stephanie Ruhle Thursday morning, regular contributor Jason Johnson, politics editor for TheRoot.com, denounced President Trump’s effort to include a citizenship question on the 2020 census form as one of his “crazy ideas that don’t make any sense” and “very possibly have racist motivations behind them.”
“Jason, does the President really think he’s going to get this thing added or is this just a play for his base?,” fretted anchor Stephanie Ruhle. Johnson complained that “people lie to President Trump all the time and tell him he can get things he can’t get....the President actually believes he can get some of this nonsense done...” The left-wing pundit continued: “So that’s the danger, I think, of how people coddle this president. That he has crazy ideas that don’t make any sense, that very possibly have racist motivations behind them, and everybody else pretends that he can make it happen...”
Turning back to Johnson moments later, Ruhle cited NBC’s daily First Read newsletter, worrying: “By continuing to fight for the citizenship question, does President Trump achieve his intended purpose here – a chilling effect on the communities responding to the census?” Johnson launched into another tirade accusing the President of sinister, racist motivations:
Oh, completely. But he does that by, you know, jailing babies at the border and threatening ICE raids every 15 minutes. All of this is part of this overall plan, this overall hostility to non-white people in America....Now whether it’s through the census, whether it’s through threatening raids, the President’s overall goal is to say, “Look, if you don’t look like a certain kind of white person I don’t necessarily want you to feel comfortable. If you are not a Republican supporter, I don’t want you to feel comfortable. My policies are not going to be driven by way of making America great or improving our economy, it’s about changing the demographic dynamics of this entire country.”
He then warned that Trump was “accomplishing his goal” because “you’ve already had social scientists come out and say, ‘Look, even talking about the census question of citizenship has frightened some communities....’”
Johnson regularly goes on MSNBC to hurl charges of racism at Republicans and conservatives, so Ruhle knew exactly what kind of extreme commentary she was going get from him when she booked him on the show.
Here are excerpts of the July 11 discussion:
9:05 AM ET
(...)
STEPHANIE RUHLE: Jason, does the President really think he’s going to get this thing added or is this just a play for his base? When he goes to run again, all of the things he didn’t get done, he’ll say, “I wanted to get it done, I fought for you, it’s the system.”
JASON JOHNSON [POLITICS EDITOR, THEROOT.COM]: So, Stephanie, what we’ve seen so far is that people lie to President Trump all the time and tell him he can get things he can’t get. So I’m sure he was angry when the Supreme Court said, “Hey, look, we don’t really believe your reasons. It’s just like with the Muslim ban, you can’t tell us it’s this, we have a pretty good idea that it’s that.” And then, William Barr and everybody else will say, “Okay, Mr. President, we’ll find a way to do it.” I think the President actually believes he can get some of this nonsense done, even if you have entire DOJ legal teams who say this is impossible. So that’s the danger, I think, of how people coddle this president. That he has crazy ideas that don’t make any sense, that very possibly have racist motivations behind them, and everybody else pretends that he can make it happen even when legally and structurally and historically, it ain’t gonna work.
(...)
RUHLE: Jason, I want to ask a question that came out in today’s First Read: “By continuing to fight for the citizenship question, does President Trump achieve his intended purpose here – a chilling effect on the communities responding to the census?”
JOHNSON: Oh, completely. But he does that by, you know, jailing babies at the border and threatening ICE raids every 15 minutes. All of this is part of this overall plan, this overall hostility to non-white people in America. Now whether it’s through the census, whether it’s through threatening raids, the President’s overall goal is to say, “Look, if you don’t look like a certain kind of white person I don’t necessarily want you to feel comfortable. If you are not a Republican supporter, I don’t want you to feel comfortable. My policies are not going to be driven by way of making America great or improving our economy, it’s about changing the demographic dynamics of this entire country.” So he is accomplishing his goal. And you’ve already had social scientists come out and say, “Look, even talking about the census question of citizenship has frightened some communities that are already difficult to get in contact with in all parts of the south and different parts of the southwest.”
RUHLE: Those communities are thinking about these raids.
JOHNSON: Yes.
(...)
