Thursday night’s All In made sure to highlight the blatant bias against anyone who supports Trump and his campaign. Host Chris Hayes and guests tore apart Stephen Ross, the owner of Equinox, for Friday’s Trump fundraiser which has received a torrent criticism from the media and SoulCyclists everywhere.
Hayes began: “I thought the Stephen Ross statement was so -- such a perfect microcosm of the whole way that the Republican coalition in the era of Trump stays together.” Elie Mystal, the executive editor of Above the Law, responded: “Exactly. It's, ‘I want my tax cuts and that's all I want and I don't care about the rest.’ Look, I'm surprised -- Trump is a bigoted demagogue and we all kind of know that. These people should be ashamed of supporting him.”
Mystal should be ashamed of being on a show that constantly derides American citizens and expresses desire for harassment even though people are freely able to support whomever they want.
Guest Paola Ramos, the host of Vice’s “Latin-X” joined in, calling the “resistance” to action:
What I am loving is the backlash, right, because I think finally it's crystallizing in everyone's minds that we all have, every single one of us has a moral responsibility to do something, right? You can be someone that goes to SoulCycle and you can be an activist, but that is exactly what the resistance envisioned, right, which is that activism can look many different ways. This is part of that.
Unfortunately for Ramos, people’s definitions of “moral responsibility” differ wildly in 2019, she may have a hard time getting people to join a movement advocating for full term abortions, and banning “gendered language”.
The conversation moved on to why donations need to be made public, obviously so liberals can keep track of what corporations to boycott. John Marshall, editor and publisher of Talking Points Memo, stated: “…what you see is a growing desire that money should have untrammeled rights to enter into politics as speech and also have confidentiality, which breaks the whole speech model really.”
Mystal responded: “They want free speech, they want consequent-less speech and that is what we cannot continue to allow them to have.” Taking away people’s rights in order to help their own agenda sounds like a crowd pleaser.
Of course, a reason these corporations and donors want privacy is to avoid being attacked for their personal political preferences, but this makes no sense when evil ‘white supremacist’ Trump is president. Ramos stated: “Exactly, it's public. But what is wrong with exposing the truth, what is wrong with exposing people that are fueling his agenda, right? So my question is to the donors, like, what are you so ashamed of? Why can you not be proud, can you not be okay with associating yourself with a white supremacist? Be okay with that.”
Marshall addressed the idea that perhaps donors are fearful due to polarization: “But the reality is, I haven't seen any case of anybody who was targeted in anyway because they gave money.” To which Mystal responded: “People of color are already targets under this administration. I have no problem with shining the light back on the donors who fund this kind of racialized hate.”
He went on with the outrageous statement: “I mean I go further, I want pitchforks and torches outside this man's house in the Hamptons. I've been to the Hamptons, it's very nice. There's no reason why it has to be.”
This seemed like an odd thing to say in the midst of the liberal media constantly criticizing Fox News for encouraging violence that lead to the shootings last weekend. Mystal was of course quick to amend his statement emphasizing that protests should be ‘peaceful’: “No, I want people -- there's no reason why people shouldn't be able to be outside of his house and making their voices peacefully understood that they do not -- they reject him”
Here is the transcript from the August 8 episode of All In with Chris Hayes:
MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes
08/08/19
08:52 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES: I thought the Stephen Ross statement was so -- such a perfect microcosm of the whole way that the Republican coalition in the era of Trump stays together.
ELIE MYSTAL [EXECUTIVE EDITOR, ABOVE THE LAW]: Exactly. It's, "I want my tax cuts and that's all I want and I don't care about the rest." Look, I'm surprised -- Trump is a bigoted demagogue and we all kind of know that. These people should be ashamed of supporting him. Like at this point you should basically only be able to contribute to the Trump campaign with bit coin, right? But Equinox man is out there holding an Eyes Wide Shut party and he's surprised that people are getting up in his grill. We understand, we know that there is no constitutional way to put pressure on these people's exercise of their money as speech. But there's darn sure social pressure that we have barely tried and it’s time for us to start trying at least.
CHRIS HAYES: Yeah, I think the civil society part of it is fascinating.
PAOLA RAMOS [HOST, VICE’S “LATIN-X”]: Exactly. And I'm not surprised at all at his response. What I am loving is the backlash, right, because I think finally it's crystallizing in everyone's minds that we all have, every single one of us has a moral responsibility to do something, right? You can be someone that goes to SoulCycle and you can be an activist, but that is exactly what the resistance envisioned, right, which is that activism can look many different ways. This is part of that.
HAYES: Right. So I just want to make the conservative argument about all of this, right, is that you're sliding down this dystopian-like slippery slope where like it's not just about Trump, it’s going to be about all Republicans or all conservatives and anyone with any politics -- like everyone is going to use every consumer decision. Cities have passed these laws, right, that you know, in the case of Chick-fil-A because of the founder's, you know, belief or opposition to gay marriage, that like you're going to end up in a position where everything gets politicized.
JOHN MARSHALL [EDITOR AND PUBLISHER OF TALKING POINTS MEMO]: You know, I think the thing is we know, according to the Supreme Court, and it's a rule that we operate under now, that campaign contributions are speech. Speech is public. In the nature of it, speech is public. And what you see, not so much this particular controversy, but there's a big movement on the right, that campaign contributions should be confidential.
HAYES: Yes.
MARSHALL: So this doesn't happen.
HAYES: There's already a huge amount of dark money thanks to Citizens United.
MARSHALL: But even beyond dark money, even the official money should be -- and what you see is a growing desire that money should have untrammeled rights to enter into politics as speech and also have confidentiality. Which breaks the whole speech model really.
MYSTAL: They want free speech, they want consequent-less speech and that is what we cannot continue to allow them to have. And that is why we need to take -- so when you're talking about the slippery slope, the way you avoid the slippery slope is don't support people who cage children. Don't support people who are racist bigots. Like it's not that actual -- what we're asking for is not actually all that much, right? And so I don't really worry about the slippery slope because I feel like if we have collective action, collective social pressure on our friends and families and uncles, and whatever to stop supporting this ridiculousness that we will actually get somewhere.
HAYES: There's also -- I mean, the other worry, right -- so you talked about wanting to make the donors anonymous. It was very interesting, so when Congressman Joaquin Castro, right, he tweeted out some donors, maxed-out donors to Donald Trump that were in San Antonio where he -- part of his district. And people flew off the handle that he was essentially engendering some threats towards him, he was painting a target on their back. What do you think of that?
RAMOS: I saw nothing wrong with that. What is wrong -- as you said -- what is wrong with --
HAYES: It is public information, just to be clear.
RAMOS: Exactly, it's public. But what is wrong with exposing the truth, what is wrong with exposing people that are fueling his agenda, right? So my question is to the donors, like, what are you so ashamed of? Why can you not be proud, can you not be okay with associating yourself with a white supremacist? Be okay with that.
MARSHALL: I think the key is --
HAYES: Well, the worry is -- I should just say, the worry is danger. I mean, and I had a moment there, I think partly because we're just up against, like, two mass shootings, where there's part of me that was like, I do worry about -- I worry about political violence in America and I would like to not --
MARSHALL: If Castro had asked me, like, "Should I do this?" I would have said I'm not sure that's the greatest idea, but I don't see it as a big problem.
HAYES: No, no.
MARSHALL: And the bigger thing is, you know, in that case, relatively small donors, it's not like this guy who's probably bundling millions of dollars or something like that, but you do not have to give to political campaigns. It is speech, it is an inherently public thing.
HAYES: Right, you're in the public, yes.
MARSHALL: And the reality is, look, we live in a polarized time. We live in a time where a lot of, you know, bad things are going on. So I think we all have to be kind of collectively cautious about, you know, kind of focusing in on one person and, you know, what some crazy person might do. But the reality is, I haven't seen any case of anybody who was targeted in anyway because they gave money. Maybe someone tweeted at them --
MYSTAL: Trump is doing the targeting.
MARSHALL: Yeah, exactly. It just has not happened and I don't think there's really, you know, the kind of people that gave -- you know, maxed-out only takes, what, depending on if it's a couple or an individual, a few thousand dollars. No one really cares. No one's going to be thinking about them a week from now. But again, speech is public.
HAYES: Right.
MYSTAL: People of color are already targets under this administration. I have no problem with shining the light back on the donors who fund this kind of racialized hate. I mean I go further, I want pitchforks and torches outside this man's house in the Hamptons. I've been to the Hamptons, it's very nice. There's no reason why it has to be. There's no reason why he should have his nice -- should be able to have a nice little party, right? No, I want people -- there's no reason why people shouldn't be able to be outside of his house and making their voices peacefully understood that they do not -- they reject him.
HAYES: Totally. There have been peaceful protests outside Mitch McConnell's house and I imagine there will be peaceful protests outside this, which is again, it's all speech. Peaceful protests, the right to assembly under the First Amendment, like, that is the way that – I mean, because you're point here, right, is like, how does civil society deal with what we’re seeing?
