As if anyone needed to be reminded, Chris Hayes really doesn’t like conservatives. The far left MSNBC host led off his show last night with an extended anti-Republican rant. He followed this by having fellow liberal Sam Seder come on the show to reinforce his monologue by claiming all the GOP presidential candidates are “buffoons” who are allowing the buffoon-leading Donald Trump set the issues for them.
Seder started off this segment by opining about the Republican field’s supposedly dangerous ideas and rhetoric on Iran. Not only did he bash Scott Walker for not “ruling out” any action necessary to end Obama’s recent Iran deal, or Lindsey Graham for not automatically trusting any Middle-Eastern extremist group, he also took a swipe at one of John McCain’s comments from his 2008 presidential campaign:
SEDER: Remember when John McCain said 'bomb, bomb, bomb Iran'. Imagine for a moment if a foreign leader who is maybe going to become the prime minister or the president of another country said 'bomb, bomb, bomb America'. Just contemplate how absurd this would be.
It would seem that Seder hasn’t been listening to much of what Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei has been saying recently– or really any Iranian politician over the past 35 years for that matter. Last Saturday, according to The Times of Israel, the Supreme Leader had this to say about America and Israel:
KHAMENEI: You heard ‘Death to Israel’, ‘Death to the US.’ You could hear it. The whole nation was shaken by these slogans. It wasn’t only confined to Tehran. The whole of the nation, you could hear, that was covered by this great movement. So we ask Almighty God to accept these prayers by the people of Iran.
Whoops. But as usual, facts don’t matter to MSNBC so long as you’re bashing and degrading conservatives. So the liberal talk show host continued his full on assault of conservatives, going so far as to lump Donald Trump in with the rest of the Republican candidates as “Buffoons” who cater to a radical, blood-thirsty base.
SEDER: One of the things that's been interesting about Donald Trump, and from the beginning, is that there's been a complete misunderstanding as to why he was going to be so popular with the Republican base. When you see Jeb Bush following Donald Trump, he's not counter programming to Donald Trump, he's moving closer to Donald Trump's position. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of where the Republican party is, I think, when people dismiss Donald Trump as a buffoon. Yeah, he’s a buffoon. But really not that different from the other buffoons in the Republican Party.
HAYES: Well when you play his responses on the Iran deal, it sounds essentially indistinguishable from everyone else on the Republican side.
A more complete transcript of the conversation can be found below:
SAM SEDER, guest: That's the thing that I think to a large extent, you know, these Republicans because they are somehow more respectable in the eyes of the media establishment in some measure, maybe because they've been around longer. Let's contemplate what comes out of the adults mouths. Lindsey Graham. Al-Anything in the Middle East is a problem. I mean, Really?
CHRIS HAYES, Host: It’s a speech. It’s an actual quote he's talking about.
SEDER: Is that presidential? When John McCain saying ‘bomb, bomb, bomb Iran.’ Imagine for a moment if a foreign leader who is maybe going to become the prime minister or the president of another country said ‘bomb, bomb, bomb America’. Just contemplate how absurd this stuff would sound.
HAYES: Or run the Scott walker quote back through that exact translation that the Iranian person saying the next person on day one might have to start aggressive military action against the U.S. And then there's the bush thing to me is in some ways even more important and less flashy than, there’s what people say, and what policies they commit themselves to. That got no attention. That little exchange. But that is possibly the biggest substantive corner to be painted into from a policy perspective of “no path to citizenship”. Hillary Clinton is pounding them on it. Saying 11-12 million people– They are cutting off your path to citizenship. You'll never be American citizens. Here, while Donald Trump is saying they send rapist and drug dealers, here is the moderate and front runner until trump knocked him off saying “no, no way”. That's a big deal.
SEDER: A poll that came out a couple days ago that showed Trump in the lead as well- not by the huge margin as this Washington post/CNN one. That poll showed that there's been big changes in terms of people's perspective on immigration even in the Republican party. So not only is he– when Jeb Bush talks like that, not only is he not moderate relative to the entire country, but even in the context of the Republican party, he's going against the trend. The majority of Republicans are still edging toward path to citizenship on some level.
HAYES: You say Republican people who are polled?
SEDER: Yes. The base of the Republican party is firmly headed in the other direction.
HAYES: You're also seeing a side from this rhetorical overshadowing that's happening, there's a phenomenon called “anchoring” in negotiations- Like the first number anchors in the negotiations. Essentially, it's like you're allowing Donald Trump to anchor your debate. It's like who names the first price matters a lot in how a negotiation goes. You're allowing him to anchor and say “We'll talk about this in these terms and then people can respond to it.”
SEDER: One of the things that's been interesting about Donald Trump, and from the beginning, is that there's been a complete misunderstanding as to why he was going to be so popular with the Republican base. When you see Jeb Bush following Donald Trump, he's not counter programming to Donald Trump, he's moving closer to Donald Trump's position. It's a fundamental misunderstanding of where the Republican party is, I think, when people dismiss Donald Trump as some type of buffoon. Yeah, he’s a buffoon. But really not that different from the other buffoons in the Republican Party.
HAYES: Well when you play his responses on the Iran deal, it sounds essentially indistinguishable from everyone else on the Republican side.
