Trump is running on a platform of 'finish the coup': analysis
New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg laid into former President Donald Trump on MSNBC Wednesday, agreeing with anchor Chris Hayes that he is effectively running on a platform of completing the January 6 insurrection — and pointing out that media organizations are in a bind about how best to cover that without legitimizing his extremism.
"There's always been a gap between his aberrant behavior and the normal mechanics of campaign coverage," said Hayes. "But they feel wider than ever now."
"Yeah, because I think that in 2016 people like me and you were maybe saying this man poses a threat to American democracy — now that's pretty well substantiated and you kind of can't argue otherwise in good faith," said Goldberg. "And also, he's also running with the specific promise to finish the insurrection that he started. He says he is running for revenge, he has this choir of January 6 prisoners. He's kind of running on the platform of—"
"Finish the coup!" Hayes completed her thought for her.
"Exactly," said Goldberg. "And kind of one man, one vote, one time. But it's a really difficult challenge, because you can't kind of not cover the likely Republican candidate for president. And the fact that he is doing this, the fact that he is running this frontal challenge to our way of government and our way of life, is a major news story. And so I think the important thing is to kind of cover it through that lens, as opposed to, oh, these wacky things that he keeps saying."
"I just think also, in a technical way, not even like — forget Donald Trump and who he is and his politics — one of the subjects of the Dominion lawsuit was that they kept putting the pillow guy on TV, knowing full well the pillow guy was going to go on and defame Dominion," said Hayes. "At a certain point you can't do that responsibly. And I'm like, well, Donald Trump's worse than the pillow guy! You cannot — I mean, I wouldn't put someone on our program who I know was going to come on and try to incite violence or, like, defame the voting machine companies. He's clearly going to do that."
Watch the segment below or at this link.
Michelle Goldberg says Trump is running to "finish the insurrection that he started" www.youtube.com