Many elected Republican officials including the President have repeatedly condemned the white supremacists and Neo-Nazis that turned up in Charlottesville, VA. But that hasn’t stopped the liberal media from tagging the whole party and conservative movement as unrepentant racists.
ABC’s Cokie Roberts accused Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions of stoking the violence as she claimed both blew “dog whistles” and sent “signals” to white supremacists. CNN’s Carl Bernstein condemned Trump was “unfit” to be president, while his colleague Ana Navarro went evev further as she insisted Trump was “unfit to be a human.”
The liberal media’s motto might as well be: Never let a crisis go to waste.
The following is a collection of the most egregious attacks on Republicans (so far) in the week following the Charlottesville tragedy:
GOP “Enablers” Are “Complicit” in Racism
“I can’t believe people get up here on CNN and other networks and actually try to defend, especially African Americans and Jewish people, to try to defend what Donald Trump said yesterday. This there is no defense for what he said. What he said yesterday was disgusting. It was un-American. And anyone who is American and believes in this country should be speaking out against this person and saying that it is wrong for him to do this. And anyone who — let me be plainly clear — anyone who is in that White House and who is supporting him is complicit in their racism as well....When do Republicans stand up and say enough is enough.”
— Host Don Lemon on CNN New Day, August 16.
Host Stephanie Ruhle: “We heard nothing from Mitch McConnell, whose own Asian-American wife had to stand there, humiliated by her own president. Why won’t these Republican leaders call the President out? I cannot imagine those young white males wielding torches are going to get them elected.”
Political analyst Steve Schmidt: “Elaine Chao is a good person. She has served the country in public service for a long time. But now she will be indelibly marked by this, standing behind as a prop while the President gives sucker to white supremacist groups. And she has a decision to make this morning. She’s complicit in this, an enabler of it, and really now a fellow traveler with these groups if she doesn’t resign her office....You cannot serve honorably and morally a president who holds these positions. You simply can’t.”
— MSNBC Live, August 16.
“And now the question will be how many members of his administration will feel that they will have to leave because they can’t support those policies? Does he come out and read some kind of a statement. That’s not gonna be enough. He’s going to have to find a way to stitch the country back together again. And frankly I don’t know whether he’s capable of doing that, in his own mind.”
— Former NBC Nightly News anchor Tom Brokaw on Today, August 16.
Political commentator Bakari Sellers: “I don’t care if he’s a Nazi or a white nationalist – I put them all kind of in the same category together – Steve Bannon is a cancer to America, and I have a fundamental problem with someone who was the editor-in-chief of Breitbart who gave a platform to that type of racism, bigotry and xenophobia, being a senior advisor to the President. So if he leaves, I’m going to send him an edible arrangement because he needs to go.”
Political commentator Tara Setmayer: “I agree. No, I agree with you, and, you know, what Steve Bannon represents is something that I shudder to think about him receiving taxpayer dollars working in the White House in that position of power and influence like that.”
— CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360, August 14.
“I think you’re gonna have Republicans who are going to have to figure out what they’re going to do with this President. I mean, they obviously like his agenda, and they have to figure out whether or not backing that agenda ultimately means that they are going to be standing beside a President who in word seems to have some sympathies for white supremacists. That’s a major, major thing for them and the Republican party.”
— Reporter Nia-Malika Henderson on CNN Newsroom, August 16.
MSNBC Looks to Iranian Dictator For Advice On U.S. Race Relations
“Both here and abroad, the political reaction has been really, really swift. And most leaders have been joining into what’s really been this global criticism of the President’s remarks. All the way from Europe and some of our closest allies to Iran. And I want to show you what Iran’s Supreme Leader put up today on Twitter. He put up this photo of him with – holding a young black child, and he wrote, ‘If the U.S. has any power, they better manage their country, tackle white supremacy, rather than meddle in nation’s affairs.’ And this isn’t the first time he’s jumped in and commented on the race relations in the United States, he’s retweeted Black Lives Matter during that spate of shootings of unarmed black men.”
— Correspondent Morgan Radford on MSNBC Live, August 16.
Trump and Sessions “Stoked” Supremacist “Base” with “Signals”
“If you’re looking for the roots why white supremacist and neo-Nazis felt emboldened to march on a college town, you don’t have to look very far from the White House. You just have to look at Trump and his refusal to, at any stage condemn these people. Whether it’s David Duke that he refused to condemn, whether it's the fact that he brought someone like Steven Bannon, whose Breitbart catered to these people, into the White House. You look at the President’s behavior. At a certain point, you’re going to have to say that maybe the reason he doesn’t condemn these people is because in one way or another he may see them as allies, see them as part of his activist base.”
— Slate writer Jamelle Bouie on CBS Face the Nation, August 13. On the March 3, 2016 edition of MSNBC’s Morning Joe, Trump denounced Duke: “David Duke is a bad person, who I disavowed on numerous occasions over the years. I disavowed him. I disavowed the KKK.” Trump added: “Do you want me to do it again for the 12th time? I disavowed him in the past, I disavow him now.”
“The President has to share responsibility. The fact is through that campaign, he blew all kind of whistles that those of us who grew up in the Jim Crow South, like I did, recognized immediately. It was just calling out to these white supremacists who then felt empowered by it. And the President now not calling them out.”
— Political analyst Cokie Roberts ABC This Week, August 13.
“But this is also a really watershed moment for the Justice Department because it’s not just categorizing these hate crimes. Jeff Sessions has gone backwards on a lot of things having to do with race. Taking a look at the Obama federal investigations of how police treat people of color. He’s saying, let’s not do that anymore. Let’s keep voting rights suppressed.’ He’s doing a lot of things that send signals to these white supremacists.”
— Political analyst Cokie Roberts ABC This Week, August 13.
“I guess I do blame Donald Trump because I think he pulled the lid off this. These folks are out there, but their numbers have skyrocketed since he declared his candidacy, basically declaring Mexicans who are undocumented, Mexicans rapists and criminals. And I think that he stoked the fires of this kind of thing. He refused to put it down and he put Steve Bannon in the White House. I do blame him. There’s a reason we didn’t see this three years ago, four years ago.”
— Political analyst Joan Walsh on MSNBC Live, August 12.
Trump is “Unfit” to Be President and a Human
“There’s a much deeper story here, and that is we’re in the midst of a presidential crisis, leadership crisis, such as this country has never experienced....How do you deal with a president who morally, ethically, has no regard for the law in their view and therefore unfit to be president in a way that none of his predecessors were?....That doesn’t mean that the President doesn’t have his base which he appeals to and did over the weekend once again by letting this racist event go by without him taking proper notice of it....We now have a story in which we as reporters need to be talking to high sources in the intelligence community, in the White House itself, in the Congress about the competency and fitness of the President of the United States.”
— CNN analyst and former Washington Post journalist Carl Bernstein on CNN Newsroom, August 14.
“He was a coward. He didn’t have the spine to stand-up as leader of the United States and I feel that to be shameful. I’m glad Republican are calling him out on it. I’m glad elected leaders in the Republican Party are finally, finally stopping looking the other way and confronting the fact that he’s not only not fit to be president. In my book, his lack of empathy, his lack of leadership, his lack of courage, he’s unfit to be human.”
— Political commentator Ana Navarro on CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow, August 14.
Trump = “First Neo-Nazi President”
“If facts still mean anything in America, Trump will also be recognized henceforth for what he is: the chief recruiter and Dear Leader of a gang of domestic terrorists....The president is the most powerful hate-monger in America. He is the imperial wizard of the new white supremacy....To his supporters, and to himself, Donald Trump is the living embodiment of Hitler’s concept of Aryan Herrenvolk (‘Aryan Master Race’). He is our first neo-Nazi president. And until we acknowledge that unthinkable truth, and treat Trump’s presidency as the anti-democratic crisis that it is, he will not be the last.”
— The New Republic Editor-at-Large Bob Moser in August 14 article “‘Donald Trump, Neo-Nazi Recruiter-in-Chief.”
Trump “Never” Denounced Hate Groups in 2016, Except When He Did
“I was there every step of the way during the campaign and it took him awhile to condemn hate groups. He never said to white nationalists explicitly. And if he did, I can’t remember it off the top of my head, but I don’t think he did. He never said: ‘I don’t want your support.’”
— Host Katy Tur on MSNBC’s Meet the Press Daily, August 14. Trump at the March 3, 2016 GOP primary debate: “I totally disavow the Ku Klux Klan. I’d totally disavow David Duke. I’ve been doing it for two weeks. This is, you are probably the 18th person that's asked the question.”
Trump = “Pathetic Sniveling Little Man”
“What a pathetic sniveling little man our president is, a coward. You know it’s very easy to use the terms Nazis and Ku Klux Klan....The Ku Klux Klan for decades and, they are built on lynching African-Americans. The Nazis are built on the followings of Adolf Hitler of exterminating Jews....Mr. President, can you not condemn those people? Are you in support of that? Is that what this is? It is so disgusting and repulsive. And when you watched him speak, when you could see – we’ve seen him speak passionately....He was almost reading that text almost like he didn’t want to. And then when he got animated was when he got to the ‘many sides’ part....Joe has asked me many times on this show, you know, ‘Donnie, you and I have known Trump for years, he says racist things. But he’s not really a racist.’ No, he is a racist. He is a racist. Can we just say it once and a for all when we look at his history....He’s talked about reverse discrimination against whites, the birther movement. We have a racist as a president because a man that cannot stand up and condemn the Ku Klux Klan and Nazism is a racist.”
— Political analyst Donny Deutsch on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, August 14.
Trump is an “Accessory” to Charlottesville Murder
“He [Trump] once said I could shoot somebody on Fifth Avenue and I won’t lose any support. Well, this is like a person died today. And so he didn’t shoot him. But you could consider him an accessory, in a sense, because he’s been stoking this stuff for years. So unless he comes out in a full-throated condemnation of what we saw today, then – and risk losing these people – then he’s not the president of what we know as the United States of America.”
— Actor/Director Rob Reiner on MSNBC Live, August 12.
