An MS NOW panel on Thursday evening was floored by the meltdown of Republicans on Capitol Hill, as Trump alienated them with his "Anti-Weaponization Fund" and demanded politically toxic votes from them.
Anchor Chris Hayes began by turning to Rolling Stone reporter Nikki McCann Ramirez. "There's ... this sense, I mean, today it was, again, I say the one poll ... 31% approval."
The current mindset of Trump, Hayes argued, is one of two things. "Either he's term-limited out, in which case, like he doesn't care. What does he care? He wants to build his arch. He wants his, like, ballroom. He wants to make his money. Or the way he's going to stay in power is through extrademocratic and extraconstitutional means. In either case, he doesn't care about the median voter ... but the people that do have to care about the median voter are the people that sit in Capitol Hill, as we saw them melting down."
"No, no, absolutely," agreed Ramirez. "And I think there was the dual insult of the request for funding for the ballroom. And then on top of that, the White House is just demanding that they authorize almost $2 billion in spending—"
"Didn't even demand they authorize, just authorized, just to be clear!" cut in Hayes.
"You are correct. Yes," said Ramirez. "But for people who tried to kill them, yes. And just ask them to rubber-stamp it. And I think you saw even in John Thune's face, he is so over it. He is done with this."
Civil rights leader Maya Wiley weighed in at this point.
"Look, anytime you want to win a race or you want your party to win a race, what are you running on?" she said. "What are you actually going to do for people? None of this is talking about what anybody is actually saying their problem is."
"I mean, if you're pulling out people who have extremist views and, and have said really hateful things or align themselves with hate, and you're using that to attack a civil rights organization ... Southern Poverty Law Center. A flimsy criminal indictment," said Wiley. "But you're using your time to at the same time that this slush fund to protect people like the Proud Boys who orchestrated and incited intentionally violence on our Capitol to prevent voters votes from counting. This is where you're going to put money?"
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