Over the weekend, the always ultra-liberal AM Joy show on MSNBC included a couple of especially noteworthy incidents of guests hyperbolically attacking President Donald Trump as frequent MSNBC guest (and former New York Times reporter) David Cay Johnston called him a "flat-out full racist," and MSNBC contributor Jason Johnson claimed the President was a "danger to this planet" and "everybody in this particular country."
As Saturday's show began with a segment on ESPN's Jemele Hill calling President Trump a "white supremacist," leading White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders to call for her firing, host Joy Reid went to Johnston first for his reaction. The author and frequent MSNBC guest immediately tore into Trump as he began:
Donald Trump is a racist. He isn't just a white supremacist -- he's a flat-out, full racist, and unless your definition of a racist is you hung somebody from a tree, he is a racist. He's been the subject of judicial hearings and administrative hearings into this. He's made awful comments over the years.
He added:
He is the embodiment of being a racist. Just as Ms. Huckabee Sanders's comments the other day are the embodiment of censorship and should have upset every single person in America who has even a modest level of respect for our Constitution.
After Reid followed up by asking how it happens that Trump is friendly with prominent blacks like Darryl Strawberry and Don King, Johnston continued:
But that's one of the great things not understood largely by people who haven't thought about these issues. We had a black President doesn't mean we're not a racist country anymore. That we -- if we'd had Hillary Clinton, doesn't mean that feminism is no longer an issue [that] we have equality by gender. That's nonsense. And after all, let's remember that Strom Thurmond had a child with a black woman.
Reid and other panel members began giggling approvingly over Johnston's biting analysis as the MSNBC host exclaimed:
Yeah, he sure did. Well, David Cay Johnston has woken us all up this morning. I had this cup of coffee right here -- I don't think I need it anymore! I'm going to put it aside -- I'm not going to sip it anymore because David Cay Johnston has us wide awake.
The next morning, during a discussion of some in the media expressing optimism over some of President Trump's recent actions -- like holding talks with Democrats -- MSNBC's Jason Johnson went after Trump as he began:
I understand the press reaction. Trump is like a bad prom date, like, you're stuck with him. We're stuck with him for the next couple of years, so people are going to try to justify and make it good. "Well, he didn't open the door, but he kind of paid for dinner before he flirted with the waitress and that sort of thing."
Johnson -- who is also politics editor for The Root -- then added:
And so every time he does something that's not horrible, people are rushing to try and say it's okay because dealing with the daily reality that this man is a danger to this planet, not to mention everybody in this particular country, is more than most people want to write about. But that's the reality of it.
