Donald Trump had spent Wednesday essentially hiding from real people. His visits to the sites of two mass shootings were almost illicit: he avoided public places in favor of hospitals, where he met mostly with people who were on duty and therefore unlikely to make a scene. He saw few actual shooting victims, and, evidently … Read more
As Trump visits El Paso and Dayton today, journalists should remember some of the hard-learned lessons of the last four years, and apply them. Don’t just quote his words. Trump’s words are meaningless without context. Their true meaning only emerges when one compares what he says when he’s reading a speech with what he says … Read more
The debate over whether Donald Trump is racist or not has been an absurd distraction from reality, which is that he has been stirring up the most virulent strain of anti-immigration hysteria there is: he’s not only asserting an invasion by dangerous people with dark skin, he’s saying it poses an existential crisis to white America.
I haven’t felt like things are normal in my country for a long time now. So despite CNN’s attempts to turn the Democratic presidential debates into American Gladiators, there was something refreshing about several hours of prime-time TV dominated by the shared awareness that the Trump presidency is a dangerous and hateful aberration. Although, if … Read more
Julian Castro was right on Wednesday night to bristle when a debate moderator’s question implied that his proposal to decriminalize undocumented immigration would effectively lead to open borders. “Open borders is a right-wing talking point,” Castro snapped. (Here’s the transcript.) The question cited an influential Washington Post op-ed earlier this month by Jeh Johnson, who … Read more
It’s not uncommon for political debate moderators to be critiqued the morning after.
But I’ve never seen anything like the reaction to CNN’s performance on Tuesday night.