Sarah K. Burris
December 04, 2022
In this file photo, US President Donald Trump meets with rapper Kanye West in the Oval Office of the White House in Washington, DC, Oct. 11, 2018. - Sebastian Smith/AFP/Getty Images North America/TNS
MSNBC host Mehdi Hasan doesn't understand why people are confused that Donald Trump hasn't apologized for hanging out with Nazis and white supremacists at Mar-a-Lago.
Speaking to authoritarianism expert, Ruth Ben-Ghait began her conversation with Hasan by saying that it's the latest example of the "pivot myth," which came from Republicans who claimed Trump would "pivot" to being reasonable and rational in the general election. Then it became Trump would "pivot" after taking office. Then it changed to he would pivot after being impeached. Trump is never going to be normal.
"And among the GOP doing this, this is their very bad faith attempt to pretend that they didn't know that their white nationalist Bannon and Miller and the administration -- and also, that this is very important, just a week after they all took over after the inauguration in 2017, they issued a statement for Holocaust remembrance day that did not include Jews," she recalled. "It left out Jews. Which was a gift to Holocaust deniers, right? And then, when the chief of staff, Reince Priebus, explained this, he refused to, you know, he refused to denounce it, and he said, oh, well everyone's suffering is important. So, he was both sides-ing the Holocaust. Another gift to neo-Nazis and Holocaust deniers. So, they have a long history of taking positions that are sympathetic to white nationalists and neo-Nazis."
Hasan noted that he was old enough to remember when Sean Spicer falsely claimed Hitler didn't use chemical weapons against his own people.
Historian Eric Alterman noted the long history of Trump and his allies pushing pro-Nazi rhetoric and violent antisemitism.
"Yet, the mainstream media and also American Jewish organizations and pro-Israel organizations consistently are trying, well, those both sides. There's Trump, and there is Ye, and there are these horrible antisemitic advertisements that Republicans run, but Ilham Omar once said something that we find objectionable. Or some kid and some college says something that we don't like. They're addicted to this both-sided ideology. But also, it's true: people just can't believe how awful Donald Trump is. This is one aspect of it. It's a very important aspect, and as a Jew, I take it quite seriously. But there's just -- it's been a consistent refusal to own up to who Donald Trump really is. He's an antisemite, He's a racist, I could go on for 15 minutes."
See the comments from the panel discussion below or at the link here:
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