Look, we just saw how Donald Trump has danced around or with white supremacists over the years. But sitting at a table at his home at Mara Lago with a white supremacist like Nick Fuentes, does that cross some kind of new line?
Well, look, for most people, it's crossing a line. And for Donald Trump, it's sort of another day in life. And I think we've just got to acknowledge that the President now has sort of joined the Dlist of celebrities.
This is what you do. You hang out with discredited entertainers, you hang out with neo-Nazis, and you try to make time with whoever will give you attention. But the fact of the matter is it's appalling when anyone in public life has any degree of hesitation about hanging out with those people who promote antisemitism racism and all forms of hate.
What's the impact of it? What's the impact of a former president in the world seeing a former president dining with an auction of John? It is the normalization of hate. We're seeing it again and again.
And think about it. We're still mourning those who have shot dead in Colorado Springs two weeks ago just because they were LGBTQ. Two weekends ago, we had an antisemitic attack nearly averted right here in New York City where men were apprehended or intercepted at Penn Station with automatic weapons, bulletproof vests, and knives that were planning on attacking a synagogue.
And now this. This is the normalization of hate where a presidential candidate or someone of public life thinks it's permissible again to spend time with people who spew prejudice and hate. So as a civil society, what should we do about this?
What is the right response? Well, I think one thing that we're already seeing and you're showing are people, prominent Republicans, calling it out when a Republican in their midst again promotes hate because you need to call it out when it happens from your side.
Democrats need to call out Democrats. Republicans need they call out Republicans. But the second thing is we've got to cut off the oxygen to these people. Trump. And Nick Fuentes. They thrive on attention.
We've got to cut it off and reconsider how we even cover these people anymore. How do you do both, though? How do you call it out and cut off the onsite at the same time? I love the way The New York Post, you know, covered his announcement.
They said Florida Man announces run for President. That's how we need to treat Donald Trump, not as a credible former politician, but as a discredited hack again who weaponizes hate and who uses antisemitism to advance his agenda.
That's not okay. No matter how you vote, no matter what your party affiliation, there should be nothing partisan about promoting Brexit. It's interesting. Marco Rubio and Mike Pence, we heard part of his response there.
They said the same thing. They both condemned the fact that Trump sat with Nick Fontes, but they both also made a point of saying that they don't think that Donald Trump himself is an antisemite.
What do you think of those who choose to make that distinction? I think it's fair to say that this man whose daughter, whose grandchildren are Jewish, has a complicated relationship with the Jewish people.
But when you validate the people who spew antisemitic venom, that's enough. We can't judge people on what they say. We've got to judge them on what they do. John and again and again. Whether it's saying they're fine people on both sides, whether it's pretending like you don't know who David Duke is, whether it's telling the people rampaging through the Capitol wearing Camp Auschwitz sweatshirts that you love them again, we've got to judge Donald Trump on what he does again and again and again.
And it's validating the worst elements of society.