This week on the Sunday news shows: An MSNBC guest argued that the media's focus on interviewing white working-class voters is "dangerous" and "racist," a Democratic senator took aim at both sides of the aisle for prejudging the impeachment trial, and another MSNBC guest said that military cadets need to be taught that the "OK" hand symbol is not okay.
MSNBC Guest: Interviewing White Trump Voters Sends 'Racist Message'
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7aUfboWLXQE
MSNBC guest Eric Boehlert said the media's focus on white working-class voters is "dangerous" and "racist" during an appearance on AM Joy.
"This obsession, and it goes back to the day after he was inaugurated, this obsession with interviewing white, Midwestern Trump voters and asking them what they think about Trump, it is a dangerous, it is a racist message," Boehlert said. "Because the message is, white Republicans are who matter in this country. Their opinions are what really matter. The press invented this beat out of whole cloth after Trump was elected."
Boehlert said that the opinions of white working-class voters are not news.
"After impeachment, article after article: 'Trump voters, what did you think of impeachment?' What's the point? That's not news," he said. "That's just not news. And again, I think it's dangerous and I think it's frankly racist."
Host Joy Reid also said that the media like Trump because he can be entertaining for them.
Trump "might also be entertaining" for "a lot of people who aren't victimized by him," Reid said. Those people "aren't in danger of him because they're not an immigrant child who's going to go in a cage, they're not a black person who's going to lose their right to vote, they're not a woman who's going to lose their right to sovereignty over their own body," she said.
"If you're not at risk, he might also be entertaining."
Reid has previously compared media coverage of Trump to the media's coverage of Nazi dictator Adolf Hitler before World War II.
Dem Senator: Fellow Senators Have 'Gone Too Far' on Prejudging Impeachment Trial
Sen. Dick Durbin (D., Ill.) said his fellow senators on both sides of the aisle have "gone too far" in expressing their opinions on impeachment before the trial begins.
"Is it a mistake for your fellow senators on both sides of the aisle frankly to say how they're going to vote before the trial starts?" CNN's Dana Bash asked.
"I really think it is," Durbin said. "I think they've gone too far. How could they hold their hands up and say I swear impartial justice and I'd like to sit at the manager's table with the president's team? You can't do that. They shouldn't have done that."
Bash said that Democratic senators like Elizabeth Warren (D., Mass.) and Kamala Harris (D., Calif.) have said they will vote to convict Trump before the trial has started.
Durbin said they shouldn't have. "As far as I'm concerned they could tell which way they are leaning or how they feel in terms of the probability but when it comes to saying I made up my mind it is all over, for goodness sakes that is not what the Constitution envisioned," he said.
MSNBC Analyst: Cadets Using "OK" Hand Sign Should Be Taught It's Not Okay
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WE-aK6QA8pM
MSNBC guest Naveed Jamali said a recent controversy involving a group of West Point cadets allegedly displaying a white supremacist hand symbol means the cadets need to be taught why the symbol is not okay.
"I don't doubt that those midshipmen and that West Point cadet were actually not doing the white power symbol," Jamali said during an appearance on AM Joy. "But it's got to be something that we teach. It shouldn't be something that's okay."
An internal investigation found that the cadets were playing the "circle game" after they were accused of flashing a white supremacist hand symbol.
"They should understand why it's not okay to do that," Jamali said.
AM Joy host Joy Reid had previously accused the cadets of making the white power symbol on television. Reid said the fact the cadets were making the hand symbols was "concerning."