MSNBC’s The ReidOut barreled into Thursday with another hour priming viewers to hate law enforcement and dismiss urban crime as a fake, racist narrative concocted by President Trump to scare white people. But things went a step further when host Joy Reid refused to call out Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner for comparing federal agents to Nazis.
“Democracy is in crisis in Donald Trump’s America. Thousands of people were tear-gassed last night in Portland by federal officers doing Trump’s bidding in his ongoing show of force against American citizens exercising their right to protest, brutality that left even the city’s mayor coughing and wincing as he too was tear-gassed,” Reid began, leaving out the mob as instigators of 57 straight nights of violence.
She complained not about the crime and murders (because none of those things are real to her), but instead how Trump’s carried out an “invasion” of “cities that all happen to be led by Democratic mayors” that have been “sounding the alarm over Trump’s lurch toward authoritarianism.”
For someone who exists on the far-left and thus near endless government control, Reid bemoaned a federal presence to contain crime, protect federal buildings, and how “Trump’s overreach has been met with deafening silence from his cronies in the Republican Party” that “supposedly” support “state’s rights, free speech and assembly, don’t tread on me.”
Talk about a red herring conflating support for federalism with supporting lawlessness in the streets.
After introducing her lead-off panel, she spewed more lies about federal agents, claiming they’re mysteriously “snatching people off the streets” and have been both “anonymous” and “unnamed.”
This gave Krasner the green light to hurl hate and venom at men and women who, like him, take an oath to uphold and defend the laws of our country. Without a challenge, he compared them to Nazis his father and uncles fought in World War II (click “expand”):
What are we going to do? We’re going to arrest people who break the law and that’s what we do. And we’re going to prosecute them in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. My dad volunteered and served in World War II, like most of my uncles, to fight fascism. I would not be doing my part for this country if I didn’t say the obvious, which is that we have a President who is acting like an authoritarian dictator, we know he likes them, but he is acting just like one now and he’s doing it against people who are exercising their constitutional rights. They’re trying to make the country better, which is what patriots do.
This is intolerable and the law applies equally to everyone. I know this President likes to say it doesn’t apply to him, but it does and it also applies to all his federal agents. So, if necessary, they will be arrested, they will be prosecuted and they can face a Philadelphia jury one way or the other.
Krasner continued his dangerous crusade, insisting that there hasn’t been any violence in Portland on the part of the mob, but it’s been all done at random by law enforcement:
I’m saying that when you break people’s skulls with rubber bullets without lawful justification, when you kidnap them off the street without probable cause in your military gear with your names hidden, these are crimes under Pennsylvania law.
Reid later continued her repugnant denial of crime in cities like Chicago, dismissing it as untrue and rather a “long-running narrative” by Trump that they’re “inherently dangerous...hell holes” and “hellscapes” because they “have lots and lots of black and brown folks.”
She did change her tune ever so slightly in going to MSNBC Republican Michael Steele (read: liberal Democrat) by at least acknowledging that crime exists, but brushed it off as a “local” issue the federal government shouldn’t be involved in.
Since Trump wants to see violent crime in cities like Chicago and Portland end, Steele deemed this issue outside the federal government’s purview and thus not really an issue for the country to fix (click “expand”):
[T]he dynamics is a very local one. It is not a national one. It is not that people are bussing or trucking into the City of Chicago to protest. These are Chicagoans, and these are neighborhood families and community leaders who are protesting the murder of a young African-American man in Minneapolis, alright? So that’s part one. The separate issue related to the management of crime within the City of Chicago was there long before the murder of George Floyd. It was there for quite some time, so that’s a separate issue.
What Trump has decided to do, and rather effectively is doing, is conflating all of that through the imagery that he’s taking from Portland, for example, and splattering that across the country on cities that are run largely by Democrats and making the case that one begets the other and that one doesn’t exist without the other, therefore, you need my federal help to come in to solve a problem that you seem inept at solving. I alone — remember the President has told us — I alone can fix it and so this fits very neatly into that narrative and so what the mayor has done, you know, I don’t know if she talked with the governor. I don’t know what she said with the police chief, but the idea she has now exceeded to allowing federal — a federal presence to deal with what is a local municipal, you know, crime issue, to me, sends a very dangerous signal, so I think she needs to clarify what these resources are she’s talking about the President’s sending because if it’s anybody in a uniform, that’s a problem.
MSNBC’s hatred for law enforcement and refusal to accept the need to root out mob violence was made possible (and thus supported) by advertisers such as Aetna/CVS Health, Home Advisor, and Life Alert. Follow the links to find out more at the MRC’s Conservatives Fight Back page.
To see the relevant MSNBC transcript from July 23, click “expand.”
MSNBC’s The ReidOut
July 23, 2020
7:00 p.m. EasternJOY REID: Democracy is in crisis in Donald Trump’s America. Thousands of people were tear-gassed last night in Portland by federal officers doing Trump’s bidding in his ongoing show of force against American citizens exercising their right to protest, brutality that left even the city’s mayor coughing and wincing as he too was tear-gassed. In other cities on the receiving end of Trump’s invasion, cities that all happen to be led by Democratic mayors, coincidentally, they are sounding the alarm over Trump’s lurch toward authoritarianism. Places Chicago and Kansas City, where he’s pledged to send hundreds of additional federal agents, are already speaking out against a Portland-style deployment, but Donald Trump’s overreach has been met with deafening silence from his cronies in the Republican Party. You remember them. Supposedly the parties of state’s rights, free speech and assembly, don’t tread on me. The same crowd that screamed whenever President Obama did, well, just about anything.
SPEAKER JOHN BOEHNER (R-OH) [on 11/21/14]: The President has taken actions that he himself has said are those of a king or an emperor, not an American President. [SCREEN WIPE] We will not stand by whilst the President undermines the rule of law in our country, in places lives at risk.
CONGRESSMAN MARK MEADOWS (R-NC) [ON 09/28/13]: We did not elect a dictator. We elected a President.
SENATOR MITCH MCCONNELL (R-KY) [on 11/20/14]: Imposing his will unilaterally may seem tempting. It may serve him politically in the short-term, but he knows it will make an already broken system even more broken.
REID: Now, that was when President Obama deigned to provide healthcare for millions of Americans or when he protected DREAMERs from deportation as opposed to Donald Trump sending federal forces to fight his own imaginary war on American citizens. [INTRODUCES PANEL] D.A. Krasner, Attorney Krasner, I want to start with you first, because we now see an investigation happening. The Justice Department’s inspector general has actually launched an investigation of the agency response to these protests, including what’s happening in terms of tear-gassing people, including now the mayor of Portland, Michael Horowitz is examining the use of force, the training, the instruction of these, they’re calling them officers, compliance with identification requirements, because they’re showing up dressed in camo and snatching people off the streets. You have had a strong response to the possibility that this could come to Philadelphia. What will you do if these same unnamed, anonymous camo- wearing forces pour into your city in response to protests?
LARRY KRASNER: So, first of all, Joy, I want you to know Philly is extremely excited about your show.
REID: Thank you.
KRASNER: We’re all really happy that it’s going. I just got off a call with a bunch of clergy that wanted me to pass it on to you. What are we going to do? We’re going to arrest people who break the law and that’s what we do. And we’re going to prosecute them in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office. My dad volunteered and served in World War II, like most of my uncles, to fight fascism. I would not be doing my part for this country if I didn’t say the obvious, which is that we have a President who is acting like an authoritarian dictator, we know he likes them, but he is acting just like one now and he’s doing it against people who are exercising their constitutional rights. They’re trying to make the country better, which is what patriots do. This is intolerable and the law applies equally to everyone. I know this President likes to say it doesn’t apply to him, but it does and it also applies to all his federal agents. So, if necessary, they will be arrested, they will be prosecuted and they can face a Philadelphia jury one way or the other.
REID: And just to be clear here. You’re saying that if these federal agents come through and, in your mind, violate the rights of your citizens, that the agents themselves would be subject to arrest?
KRASNER: I’m saying that when you break people’s skulls with rubber bullets without lawful justification, when you kidnap them off the street without probable cause in your military gear with your names hidden, these are crimes under Pennsylvania law. And as the prosecutorial authority in Philadelphia acting under Pennsylvania law, they will be prosecuted under Pennsylvania law. It is my sincere hope that any federal agents in Philadelphia will follow the law, they will obey the Constitution, and we will not have a problem with that. But that’s not what we’re seeing in Portland. Everything in Portland looks wrong, it looks sideways, it looks very much like this is an illegal conduct and we’re just not going to permit it.
REID: You know, and I wanted to clarify that. Aislinn Pulley, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here, all of you. Thank you for being here. But I wanted to clarify that for you because, you know, you are among the activists that Donald Trump has characterized as a mob. He’s characterized people like yourself as being some sort of unruly mob who want to destroy the police and remove them from the streets. And that’s been his characterization and there have been people, public officials, just like D.A. Krasner, who have defended the right of people to protest very strongly
(....)
7:09 p.m. Eastern
REID: You know, and Michael Steele, I want to bring you into this, because you’ve been a lieutenant governor. You know how difficult these decisions are when you’re dealing even with the gubernatorial level or at the mayoral level. What Donald Trump is — is arguing is, on its face, that he is targeting cities like Chicago, cities like Philadelphia, Democratic-run cities. It’s his long-running narrative that cities that are urban cities that have lots and lots of black and brown folks are inherently — if they’re run by Democrats, inherently dangerous. They’re inherently hell holes, hellscapes and now he’s got the power to send in what amounts to sort of the secret police, his own little police force to do better than he thinks that these mayors are doing. What do you make of the fact that you had some officials, like the Philadelphia D.A. that we have here with you, Mr. Krasner, who say, absolutely not, and we have other mayors who feel pressure from about a separate thing? Local crime has nothing to do with these protests. Donald Trump is the one conflating them. What do you make of the way that these mayors are reacting and the sort of difficulty of this?
MICHAEL STEELE: Well, what you see happening, and I think Ms. Pulley has put it exactly right, the dynamics is a very local one. It is not a national one. It is not that people are bussing or trucking into the City of Chicago to protest. These are Chicagoans, and these are neighborhood families and community leaders who are protesting the murder of a young African-American man in Minneapolis, alright? So that’s part one. The separate issue related to the management of crime within the City of Chicago was there long before the murder of George Floyd. It was there for quite some time, so that’s a separate issue. What Trump has decided to do, and rather effectively is doing, is conflating all of that through the imagery that he’s taking from Portland, for example, and splattering that across the country on cities that are run largely by Democrats and making the case that one begets the other and that one doesn’t exist without the other, therefore, you need my federal help to come in to solve a problem that you seem inept at solving. I alone — remember the President has told us — I alone can fix it and so this fits very neatly into that narrative and so what the mayor has done, you know, I don’t know if she talked with the governor. I don’t know what she said with the police chief, but the idea she has now exceeded to allowing federal — a federal presence to deal with what is a local municipal, you know, crime issue, to me, sends a very dangerous signal, so I think she needs to clarify what these resources are she’s talking about the President’s sending because if it’s anybody in a uniform, that’s a problem.
