The media’s relentless beating of the two-week-old Donald Trump administration could hardly be seen as beneficial to him, but PBS’s Tavis Smiley tried to argue that on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday. “What troubles me, Chuck, is that we -- too many of us that is -- rushed to normalize a racist, sexist, classist campaign that he ran to win this office,” Smiley whined as he smeared the president with the standard leftist tropes of him.
“And now we seem to be rushing to normalize a Supreme Court process that trampled on the constitution just a year ago and now it's just -- now we're into this conversation about ‘how should Democrats handle this?’ We're normalizing this too fast,” He continued to complain, “And it troubles me what this ultimately means for the future of this democracy if we continue in this town and beyond to normalize this kind of unrepentant behavior.”
“I think we have to put Tavis down as undecided here on some of these issues,” joked political strategist Alex Castellanos before hitting Smiley’s claims for being “way beyond the mark.” Castellanos back Smiley into a corner by reminding him of how the inner cities and education did not improve under former President Barack Obama.
Smiley appeared to be pushed back on his heels, pleading, “I don’t wanna—I don’t wanna re-litigate the campaign, number one,” before he continued pushing his narrative:
What I do want to say is that racism, sexism, classism and by any other definition, Alex is the contestation of someone's humanity and there are a whole lot of Americans who felt that during that campaign and are feeling it right now with the way we're normalizing this kind of nonsensical behavior.
How was it normalizing to have CNN’s resident Trump alarmist, Brian Stelter, constantly call for Trump to be labeled a dictator? How about CBS touting environmentalists scrambling to save the EPA’s research data from Trump? Or NBC claiming Russia is the only country partying for Trump becoming the president? The media was so rabid for a story to slam Trump with they rushed to the fake news story of Trump removing the bust of Martin Luther King Jr. from the Oval Office.
Where was his concern about the Constitution being trampled on for the last eight years? It’s ironic that he was worried about Trump participating in classism when the stars of the Democratic Party include Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. Both of whom are leading the liberal populist charge against the evil one percent.
Transcript below:
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NBC
Meet the Press
February 5, 2017
11:22:09 AM EasternTAVIS SMILEY: What troubles me, Chuck, is that we -- too many of us that is -- rushed to normalize a racist, sexist, classist campaign that he ran to win this office. And now we seem to be rushing to normalize a Supreme Court process that trampled on the constitution just a year ago and now it's just -- now we're into this conversation about how should Democrats handle this? We're normalizing this too fast. We're normalizing a Muslim ban. We're normalizing the religious test and normalizing all the things we’ve been talking about here today Alex, and it troubles me what this ultimately means for the future of this democracy if we continue in this town and beyond to normalize this kind of unrepentant behavior.
ALEX CASTELLANOS: I think we have to put Tavis down as undecided here on some of these issues.
SMILEY: Yeah.
CASTELLANOS: Look, I think the criticism of Trump as a racist campaign is way beyond the mark. This is somebody – I mean, let's face it, the country -- look at what's happening in our inner cities. How much better did Black America's lives get for the last eight years? It did not. How much better did our public schools get? They did not. So I would say while there are things Donald Trump should not have said, yes, but look at what has been done to this country—
SMILEY [Talking over Castellanos]: I don’t wanna—I don’t wanna—I Don’t wanna
[Crosstalk]
CASTELLANOS: --that’s a different kind of prejudges
SMILEY: I don’t wanna—I don’t wanna re-litigate the campaign, number one.
CASTELLANOS: Now you don’t. But I do.
SMILEY: I don’t wanna take Chuck too far off field. What I do want to say is that racism, sexism, classism and by any other definition, Alex is the contestation of someone's humanity and there are a whole lot of Americans who felt that during that campaign and are feeling it right now with the way we're normalizing this kind of nonsensical behavior.
ANDREA MITCHELL [Talking over Castellanos]: And that is the very pressure, Alex, on the Democrats—
CASTELLANOS: No, if this had been a Muslim ban, he would have banned Saudi Arabia, he would have banned Indonesia. But he did not. These are unstable governments that we can’t work with and we don’t know who’s coming from these places.
…
