During Wednesday’s Deadline: White House, host Nicolle Wallace and her panel had anything but words for President Trump. Panelist and Princeton University professor Eddie Glaude effectively blamed President Trump for the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting and a less reported shooting at Kentucky Kroger. Other panelists also expressed their displeasure with the President, labeling him a “white nationalist” and a “threat to American democracy.”
According to Glaude, President Trump “doubled down on what motivated, what radicalized Robert Bowers to go in there and kill those 11 people.” He accused the perpetrator of the Kentucky murders of pulling the trigger in the name of “some ideal of whiteness that Donald Trump represents and spews out of his mouth every single day.” Glaude also described President Trump as a moral monster, which he had already done during an appearance on MSNBC earlier this week.
Glaude then took the conversation in a slightly different direction when he talked about how “what I did wrong in 2016 is I overestimated white people.” Glaude predicted that Delaware County, Ohio and “the suburbs in Pennsylvania” would not vote for a man who was “running around the country appealing to our darker angels, (and) appealing to our hatreds and fears.”
The New York Times editorial board member Mara Gay picked up where Glaude left off: “I’m not willing to let white voters off the hook. I think that they, like the rest of us, should be treated as adults, and I think that there are a large number...a majority of white Americans in this country who are not just Democrats but who are people of conscience, who are good Americans.”
She urged these “people of conscience” to ignore the fact that “the economy is doing okay” and “put country over party” by voting against a “white nationalist President who is a threat to American democracy” in the midterms.
Anti-Trump author and Bloomberg editor Tim O’Brien ruled that Trump “has been a bigot and a white nationalist for a long time” and figuratively “kept a book of Hitler’s speeches on the nightstand by his bed.” O’Brien also claimed that President Trump’s tweets have “invoked Stalinist and Nazi rhetoric to criticize the media.”
Based on what Gay said earlier, should President Trump or anyone else suggest that the media might not always tell the truth, they would be engaging in “fascist rhetoric.” As this segment demonstrated, cable news talking heads are in no position to lecture people on using inflammatory rhetoric.
A transcript of the relevant segment of Wednesday’s Deadline: White House is below. Click “expand” to read more.
Deadline: White House
10/31/18
04:15 PM
NICOLLE WALLACE: He is going to lose on Tuesday. He is most likely going to lose the House. He’s going to lose some of the candidates he campaigned for. And he didn’t just say vote for them. He didn’t talk about them, he didn’t bring them to the stage until 40, 50 minutes into those rallies. He said this is about me. He said vote for me. So if anyone he campaigned for loses, it is a giant failure on the part of this President.
EDDIE GLAUDE: Yeah. And I don’t know how he’s going to behave. I don’t know how he’s going to react. I don’t know how his supporters will react if there’s a blue wave. I’m not optimistic.
WALLACE: It doesn’t need to be a blue wave; he said in every race that he got involved in, he said this is about me.
GLAUDE: Right, and I don’t…what I mean is that everything…nothing is going to get better after this midterm. Everything is going to get more intense, and it may even get worse. But let me say this. Not only did he not do all the things you just laid out. He introduced birthright citizenship. He doubled down. He doubled down on what motivated, what radicalized Bowers to go in there and kill those 11 people. He doubled down, like a moral monster. And see, I know one thing I did in 2016 and I’ll say this on your show, Nicolle. I was critical of Hillary Clinton and I get hemmed up on Twitter every day for criticizing Donald Trump because people believe I’m responsible, in part, for Donald Trump being in the White House. What I did wrong in 2016 is I overestimated white people. I didn’t think white people would put him in office. So here he is running around the country appealing to our darker angels, appealing to our hatreds and fears and I’m supposed to believe that Delaware County in Ohio is not going to vote for him? That the suburbs in Pennsylvania aren’t going to vote for him? Aren’t going to vote for him…So part of what I do know is that it’s going to require young people, it’s going to require people of color, it’s going to require African-Americans like they showed up in Alabama and Virginia. It’s going to require us to turn out in massive numbers because I made a mistake in 2016. And the evidence is not in yet. I know it sounds cynical, but this man doubled down after 11 beautiful people were shot and killed while worshiping. Jeffersontown, Kentucky, murdered, shot in the back of the head for what? For what? Some ideal of whiteness that Donald Trump represents and spews out of his mouth every single day.
MARA GAY: I’m not willing…I can’t disagree with that, unfortunately, as sad as it is, but I’m not willing to let white voters off the hook. I think that they, like the rest of us, should be treated as adults, and I think that there are a large number, I would say, a majority of white Americans in this country who are not just Democrats but who are people of conscience, who are good Americans and I believe that they need to move from saying well, I don’t like his tweets, but, you know, the economy is doing okay. I need…they need to move from there to reality, which is that we have a white nationalist President who is a threat to American democracy. And regardless of party, or policy views, you should put country over party first.
WALLACE: This is not the conversation Donald Trump wants the country to be having in the final days.
TIM O’BRIEN: No, because it’s not, you know, it’s not a campaign strategy on his part. This is who Donald Trump is. He has been a bigot and a white nationalist for a long time. This is a guy who kept a book of Hitler’s speeches on the nightstand by his bed.
GLAUDE: Wow. Wow.
O’BRIEN: This is a guy who in tweets over the last week has invoked Stalinist and Nazi rhetoric to criticize the media.
GAY: Fascist rhetoric.
O’BRIEN: Fascist rhetoric. He revels in it. And so it’s not just sort of a short-term, you know, policy or political move by him to appeal to his base. He’s speaking from the heart. And American voters are seeing him for who he is.
JOHN HEILEMANN: Just to inject one note here of what I actually think is going to happen, right. The greatest likelihood is we are going to have in fact a split decision on Election Day. We’re going to like…Democrats are not going to probably take back the Senate. It’s not impossible. It’s a low probability outcome.
WALLACE: It would take a tsunami, more than a wave.
HEILEMANN: He has spent, he has decided to do these 11 rallies. They are a tacit acknowledgment that the House is gone. He’s not going to competitive House races…
WALLACE: Correct.
HEILEMANN: …He’s going to red states to the reddest part of red states the places that love him most in places where he’s recognized that the Senate is not only salvageable but it’s possible Republicans could gain a couple seats in the Senate. So what’s Donald Trump going to do after Election Day? First of all, he’s already said that…
WALLACE: It won’t be my fault.
HEILEMANN: …That if Republicans win, it’s because of him. And if Republicans lose, it’s not his fault. He’s already announced that. So he’s not going to take any blame for what happened in the House. He’s already…Paul Ryan, in standing up to him on the birthright citizenship thing, he’s already given him a scapegoat. He’s going to attack Paul Ryan and Republicans in Congress who didn’t go with him all in on birthright citizenship and revoking it. So he going to blame other people for the loss of the House and then he’s going to claim credit for whatever gains there are in the Senate. That’s what’s going to happen.
WALLACE: Of course. And he’ll blame Desantis for being a crummy candidate.
HEILEMANN: Yes and we are, and we are going to tell him, we are going to speak the truth and then he’s going to speak his truth which is, as usual, an abominable lie.
WALLACE: Right. All right, Peter Baker, thank you for spending so much time with us; longer than I’m sure you expected, I’m sure, we’re grateful.
