Ex-White House lawyer: Republicans are helping Trump launch a 'modern-day Jim Crow' against voters

On Wednesday's edition of MSNBC's "The Beat," former Solicitor General Neal Katyal tore into outgoing President Donald Trump and his Republican allies for their latest assault on voting rights in Michigan.

"They just want to say Black people in Detroit's votes don't count, and that's what Republicans are doing politically," said academic Jason Johnson. "It damages democracy and it won't impress anyone two years down the road when they run for office again."

"Yeah, I agree with that," said Katyal. "Over the last two weeks, Trump has singlehandedly made the case for the John Lewis Voting Rights Act better than anyone, even Jason, better than the NAACP and the Dems in Congress. He's launched a modern-day Jim Crow, and his party is enabling it."

"What is going on in Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, Georgia, across the country, is so fundamentally un-American," added Katyal. "There is nothing more precious in our democracy than the right to vote. Go back to no taxation without representation, and Trump is effectively pulling a King George here. He wants to tax the good people of Milwaukee and Detroit but not give them votes, and somewhere Vladimir Putin and Mao Zedong are cheering him on."

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