Cross posted to the MRC's NewsBusters blog
On Friday's The Last Word on MSNBC, fill-in host Katy Tur presided over a panel discussion which placed the blame for recent rioting on President Donald Trump, and also blamed Fox News for convincing Trump voters not see him as responsible.
MSNBC contributor Yamiche Alcindor -- who is also a correspondent for PBS NewsHour -- recalled that President Trump has been trying to incorporate concerns over rioting into his campaign message, and then cited new polling suggesting that independents are turning against the Black Lives Matter movement because of the "chaos."
She concluded by fretting that the "peaceful message" of BLM is being "conflated" with "out of control rioters." Alcindor:
[video:https://www.mrctv.org/node/553164 align:center]
So what you see is there are people and there is evidence that the voters that both Joe Biden and President Trump want for them -- that those people are starting to look at the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests and starting to conflate them with the out of control rioters who are separate and apart from the actual movement that is calling for peaceful protests.
Without clarifying that Trump had encouraged rally attendees to fight back if protesters tried to throw objects, Tur recalled Trump's presidential rallies from four years ago and blamed him for violence:
KATY TUR: There are millions of people who tune in to Fox News every night and hear that drum being beaten over and over again, so, Zerlina, that reminds me of a lot of what we saw when we were covering this campaign in 2016. Donald Trump was followed by strife -- he was followed by unrest. A lot of these rallies we went to -- when you walked outside, there would be clashes between Trump voters and protesters. He was inside calling for his supporters to punch protesters -- do whatever they needed to do.
Ignoring the liberal media's role in fomenting unrest by deceiving viewers into believing there is substantial racial discrimination in police actions, Tur further blamed Trump for inciting riots and wondered why his supporters stick with him:
So he was painting this picture that America was wild and out of control even though it was only wild and out of control in the small pockets where he was at any given time. He was creating these divisive moments. It seems like what we're seeing right now is the President doing the same with the scenes coming out of a place like Kenosha, Wisconsin. I'm just wondering, when you talk to Trump voters, why do they think that the solution to what Trump is doing is more Trump?
Maxwell blamed Fox News for misinforming Trump supporters into not placing blame on him:
ZERLINA MAXWELL, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I don't think that they see him as a cause of the unrest because he is telling them -- and Fox News is backing him up on this with the footage and the narrative that they are spinning -- is that, you know, the reason that this is happening is because Democrat-led cities are not, you know, taking control of out of control black people. I mean, frankly, that's what he's saying.
Not mentioned was that similar rioting by left wingers occurred while Barack Obama was President before Trump was even running for office.
This logic-challenged episode of MSNBC's The Last Word was sponsored by Chevrolet and Verizon. Click on the links to contact them and let them know how you feel about them sponsoring such misleading content.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Friday, August 28, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC:
10:10 p.m. .Eastern
YAMICHE ALCINDOR, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: What the President was really trying to do was sell the idea of fear -- this idea of what you see on your TV with the burning cars and the looting that's separate and apart from the peaceful protests that we're largely seeing all over the country -- that that's going to come to a neighborhood near you. He's really trying to convince especially white suburban women that this is going to be a scary time if Joe Biden is elected.
And I will say, as much as we talk about Black Lives Matter, as much as we see boycotting from athletes and really the largest protest movements in a generation, the other thing we're seeing is that polling shows that the chaos is possibly hurting the Black Lives Matter movement. So now Kellyanne Conway came out yesterday and said the chaos and the violence, that that helps us essentially.
She said that that makes the distinction clear between President Trump and Joe Biden. Joe Biden said that that was really President Trump rooting for more violence -- not less violence -- and when you look at a poll Marquette Law School did in Wisconsin specifically, support for the Black Lives Matter movement dropped among independents. It went from about 40, 50 percent in July -- rather in June -- to lower than that in August.
So what you see is there are people and there is evidence that the voters that both Joe Biden and President Trump want for them -- that those people are starting to look at the Black Lives Matter movement and the protests and starting to conflate them with the out of control rioters who are separate and apart from the actual movement that is calling for peaceful protests.
KATY TUR: There are millions of people who tune in to Fox News every night and hear that drum being beaten over and over again, so, Zerlina, that reminds me of a lot of what we saw when we were covering this campaign in 2016. Donald Trump was followed by strife -- he was followed by unrest. A lot of these rallies we went to -- when you walked outside, there would be clashes between Trump voters and protesters. He was inside calling for his supporters to punch protesters -- do whatever they needed to do.
So he was painting this picture that America was wild and out of control even though it was only wild and out of control in the small pockets where he was at any given time. He was creating these divisive moments. It seems like what we're seeing right now is the President doing the same with the scenes coming out of a place like Kenosha, Wisconsin. I'm just wondering, when you talk to Trump voters, why do they think that the solution to what Trump is doing is more Trump?
ZERLINA MAXWELL, MSNBC CONTRIBUTOR: Well, I don't think that they see him as a cause of the unrest because he is telling them -- and Fox News is backing him up on this with the footage and the narrative that they are spinning -- is that, you know, the reason that this is happening is because Democrat-led cities are not, you know, taking control of out of control black people. I mean, frankly, that's what he's saying.