MSNBC's Joy Reid: I'm 'impressed' by how racist Fox News' latest Trump defense is

Former President Donald Trump's arrest and prosecution for the Georgia election racketeering case, complete with a publicly released mugshot, has led Fox News pundits to converge on a new talking point: this will actually help Trump with Black voters, because now he's been arrested, he'll look more credible and relatable to them.

MSNBC anchor Joy Reid, in discussion with civil rights activist Rev. Al Sharpton on Tuesday, was stunned that such a racist idea was being thrown around on cable news.

"Rev, you have been arrested protesting for rights," said Reid. "You have been arrested in civil rights marches. You're a civil rights leader. You go back and think about people arrested in the 1960s. John Lewis' mugshot is a badge of honor, but it was what he was arrested for. He was arrested in order to protest for people to vote and have civil rights. Donald Trump wasn't arrested for protesting for civil rights. Donald Trump has been accused of stealing national security, including nuclear secrets. He's been accused of sexual misconduct against a woman, and that's a civil case. He's been accused of attempting to steal an election and conduct a coup."

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"The idea that Black people, simply because he was arrested, are going to gravitate toward him, I actually — you know, it's almost so creatively racist that I'm almost impressed that they have all come up with this, and on Fox, this is their new talking point. They think Black people like criminals, and that's what they think of Black folk. They even think Atlanta is a giant criminal stew of the hood, and therefore any mural in Atlanta has got to be pro-Donald Trump and got to be Black people lining up to praise him. It's what they think of Black people, the reason they can't get Black people to vote for them."

"Well, it is part of the criminalization of Blacks," said Sharpton. "They see all Blacks as criminals, and they feel that we all in a knee-jerk way go with criminals. No, we go with those that we feel are falsely being criminalized and tried and cannot defend themselves. Secondly, we deal with the fact that on the other side, people that have done crimes against us rarely have been punished until of late with George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery."

"But thirdly, there is a silver lining," Sharpton added. "If they raise a lot of money on his mugshot, with 91 counts, let's see if they raise a lot of money when they put an orange suit on him if he is in fact convicted."

Watch the video below or at the link here.

Joy Reid says she is almost "impressed" by Fox News' racismyoutu.be