MSNBC All In
October 11, 2023
8:21 p.m. Eastern
CHRIS HAYES: It took very little time for the Fox News Channel to identify its domestic enemies and scapegoats after the mass slaughter in southern Israel. Yesterday a Fox reporter relentlessly pursued Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib -- the lone Palestinian woman in Congress -- through the halls of the Capitol.
LINDSEY VAUGHN, FOX NEWS REPORTER: Congresswoman, Hamas terrorists have cut off babies' heads and burned children alive. Do you support Israel's right to defend themselves against this brutality? You can't comment about Hamas terrorists chopping off babies' heads?
HAYES: It went on like that for a minute. Of course they featured it all over the network -- a reporter berating a sitting member of Congress demanding that the only Palestinian American in the House answer for the barbaric actions of Hamas. It should go without saying that Rashida Tlaib is not responsible for the actions of Hamas. But it didn't end there. The Republican party then decided to attack Tlaib for displaying the Palestinian flag outside her congressional office. To his credit, former House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, a Democrat, defended Tlaib.
LAWRENCE JONES, FOX NEWS REPORTER : Should your colleague, Rashida Tlaib, still have the Palestinian flag outside of her office?
CONGRESSMAN STENY HOYER, FORMER MAJORITY LEADER: I don't know what -- she's Palestinian. You know, that doesn't mean she's a terrorist. It doesn't mean that she condones this.
HAYES: Should she have the Palestinian flag? Then, the Republican National Committee went after Hoyer, criticizing him for defending Tlaib's right to acknowledge and celebrate her heritage, and obviously Fox got its attacks in as well.
VAUGHN: Congresswoman, why do you have a Palestinian flag outside your office if you do not condone what Hamas terrorists have done to Israel? Do Israeli lives not matter to you?
HAYES: The entire moral abomination that we witnessed in the past few days is bound up in the despicable, deadly conflation of citizens with the state and the military. That conflation singularly is the thing we must guard against in all responses to the attacks just as it was after the September 11th attacks. For all the many, many ways that the George W. Bush administration failed in its response to 9/11, to his credit, less than a week after the attacks, President Bush went to Washington to a mosque and made it clear the Muslim community was not our enemy.
PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH: The face of terror is not the true faith of Islam. That's not what Islam is all about. Islam is peace. (editing jump) Those who feel like they can intimidate our fellow citizens and take out their anger don't represent the best of America. They represent the worse of humankind, and they should be ashamed of that kind of behavior.
HAYES: Humans are humans. It's the singular principle of faith through all this. Our neighbors of all backgrounds are not our enemies. That simple fact must be sacrosanct, our north star as we navigate this very frightening and dangerous time.