Spitting on Graves? MSNBC Lets Dems Smear Tennessee GOP on Arming Teachers

Over the last few weeks as a bill made its way through the Republican-dominated Tennessee legislature to permit local areas to decide whether to let teachers concealed carry firearms to deter mass shooters, several MSNBC hosts found it "shocking" and brought on "The Tennessee Three," their favorite far-left Democrats from the state's House of Representatives -- Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, and Gloria Johnson -- to smear Republicans and push conspiracy theories. MSNBC host Ali Velshi claimed that the new law was "worse than doing nothing," and, on the April 28 edition of his eponymous weekend show, went along with State Representative Justin Jones's theory that Republicans hope arming teachers will scare parents away from sending their children to public schools. Velshi responded: "I don't want my kids going to a place where there's yet more guns in the school. I'd like zero guns in the schools." A bit after Jones declared that Republican Governor Bill Lee "has no conscience and no courage," weekend host Alex Witt concluded the segment on her April 27 show by gushing: "I'm really glad you were voted back in office." A few minutes earlier, among his substantial trashing of Republicans, Jones further declared: "the governor just spit on the face of all these people and spit on the graves of the six people killed by signing this law. Nothing to reign in gun violence like common sense gun laws that would expand universal background checks, ban assault weapons, red flag laws. Instead, he's putting a law to arm teachers -- something that no teachers want in our state." Stephanie Ruhle found the push to arm teachers "almost too much to believe," and Katie Phang labeled the move "really flawed and dangerous policies." MSNBC also allowed Democrat guests to claim that no one except pro-gun lobbyists asked for the new law. By contrast, CNN hosts at least had right-leaning guests on to explain why they support the move. CNN This Morning Weekend host Victor Blackwell had a surprisingly sober reaction on April 28 as he allowed CNN contributor and MRC alum Stephen Gutowski on as a guest so he could explain that some rural schools had difficulty finding qualified resource officers and wanted to open up the possibility of school staff stepping in to fill the void. A few weeks earlier, CNN weekday host Sara Sidner provocatively quoted left-wing protesters who chanted, "Kill the bill, not the kids" as they opposed guns in schools, and her voice cracked as she discussed the issue, but, unlike MSNBC, at least she did allow State Senator Paul Bailey (R) to appear as a guest. He recalled that the legislature had already supplied funding to hire more resource officers, but some schools had failed to find qualified candidates, making other options necessary: "We provided over $140 million to go directly to those school districts for them to be able to hire school resource officers. ... But the situation is there's not enough qualified individuals to be able to fill those positions." While some of the liberal guests invoked the Covenant school shooting that occurred in the state in 2023, it was not mentioned that that school was a gun-free zone or that nearly all mass shooters who target public places choose gun-free zones to make it less likely they will face resistance, thus pointing to a deterrence value of armed teachers. And while Democrat guests fretted that armed teachers would lead to more violence, MSNBC hosts ignored research finding that schools with armed teachers tend to be safer. Transcripts follow: CNN News Central April 10, 2024 8:02 a.m. Eastern JOHN BERMAN (in opening plug): Backlash in Tennessee after lawmakers pass a law that would allow teachers to carry concealed guns in their classrooms. (...) 8:42 p.m. SARA SIDNER (before commercial break): All right, up next, some teachers and parents up in arms over a bill in Tennessee that could allow teachers and staff members to carry a gun on school grounds. We'll talk to the bill's co-sponsor coming up. (...) 8:49 p.m. SIDNER: "Kill the bill, not the kids." That's what some parents and teachers are chanting about a bill in Tennessee that allows teachers and school staff to carry guns at school. The bill just passed by the senate -- state senate in a 26-5 vote, and now it goes to the house. It allows Tennessee teachers to carry concealed handguns in K-12 schools. The bill also puts the debate over arming educators right back in the spotlight. Currently, 34 states ban teachers and the general public from carrying guns onto public school property according to Every Town for Gun Safety. Let's discuss this now with Tennessee State Senator Paul Bailey. You are the sponsor of this bill. First of all, why do you think this will make schools safer for children and staff? (STATE SENATOR PAUL BAILEY (R-TN)) You know, you said the sheriff's association is sort of at the forefront of pushing this bill and influenced you certainly -- we saw what happened in Uvalde, though, with people who are trained with weapons -- police officers who did not respond in a quick matter. What makes you think that teachers  under this kind of stress would be able to handle this with all that they already have to do? (BAILEY) All right, I want to play for you what Lauren Shipman-Dorrance has to say about the bill. She is a teacher in Nashville. Here's what she said. LAUREN SHIPMAN-DORRANCE, NASHVILLE TEACHER: I really thought the lieutenant governor would listen to the voice of the people. You know, we know overwhelmingly so many Tennesseeans do not support legislation like this. I don't know if I'd feel safe to stay in a teaching role, to be honest with you. SIDNER: There is already a shortage of teachers. What do you say to her, that she doesn't think she'll feel safe with other folks, staff members, potentially other teachers, walking around armed in a school? (BAILEY) I'm curious if any of the schools talked to you about this and asked for this? (BAILEY) So, sir, why not -- why not pass legislation -- why not pass legislation to fund more school resource officers instead of putting this on the teachers or the staff members there who, as you know, are overtaxed? They have to do so many things in classrooms now from being counselors to teaching, you know, math and science and English. Why not just say, "Okay, let's -- let's fund the resource officers who are trained"? STATE SENATOR BAILEY: Well, I'm glad you brought that up because we had a special session last year and dealt with that. We provided over $140 million to go directly to those school districts for them to be able to hire school resource officers. And, as of just the beginning of this legislative session at the end of January, $98 million of that had been drawn down into those local school districts for them to be able to provide SRO officers. But the situation is there's not enough qualified individuals to be able to fill those positions. I'm also carrying legislation that would allow any retired law enforcement officer that would like to go back for at least two years and be a school resource officer to be able to do so without losing their retirement benefits. So we've been working in many ways to try to make sure that our schools are as safe as possible here in Tennessee. SIDNER: State Senator Paul Bailey, thank you so much for coming on and asking -- and answering the questions. Appreciate it. (...) MSNBC's The 11th Hour April 11, 2024 11:24 p.m. Eastern STEPHANIE RUHLE: Meanwhile, this week, the Tennessee State Senate advanced a bill there to arm their teachers and school staff in the face of local protests. If passed, the move would mark one of the state's biggest expansions of gun access since the deadly Covenant school shooting that took place in Nashville last year. Here to discuss, Tennessee State Representative Justin Jones. You know him as one of the Tennessee Three. He was reinstated to his position one year ago yesterday after he was peacefully protesting gun violence. And Rachel Wegner joins us -- a children's reporter at The Tennessean and USA Today network. Rachel, what should we know about this bill? Because it's almost too much to believe. (WEGNER) But once they do that, a teacher could have a gun on their belt while teaching the third grade? WEGNER: Yeah, and another thing that has raised a lot of concerns is that they won't need to disclose which staff members are carrying weapons in the schools to teachers, parents, and possibly even other teachers around them. RUHLE: Representative Jones, what is your reaction to this? What are people in your district telling you? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES (D-TN): I mean, so many people are outraged, you know. The Tennessee Republican supermajority continues to hold our state at gunpoint and put more guns on our streets, and now they're trying to force guns into our classrooms. I think the most asinine thing about this, Stephanie, is that we live in a state where we've passed laws saying we don't trust teachers to pick the books in their classrooms. We don't trust teachers to pick their own curriculum about history. But now we want to say we want teachers to carry guns in our schools when every parent we saw show up in our committees, said, "Please don't do this -- more guns are not the solution, and they'll make out children and our schools more unsafe." RUHLE: We don't even provide those teachers with the school supplies they need to do their jobs. Rachel, what are parents and teachers saying about this? WEGNER: So I would say fairly wide outcry against the passage of the bill now in our state senate has been rolling this week. It is yet to be taken up by our house, but, as we've got into that potential hearing, lots of folks are planning to continue their protests and speaking out against this over their concerns for all the ways things could go wrong. Supporters of the bill have, you know, a different viewpoint on that, but teachers, parents, students, I've almost unanimously heard them say they're opposed to it, and they're worried about what it means. RUHLE: Representative, what do you say to people who argue, "Well, schools have the option to opt out." Is that good enough? (...) JONES: And so what we're hearing in our state is people saying that our legislature is morally insane. We have a Republican supermajority that has just lost their mind and, you know, passing laws just last week to honor the Tennessee Rifle the same week that we are recognizing the Covenant tragedy here in our state -- a mass shooting that took the lives of three nine-year-olds and three adults, and, you know, we're going to honor a gun? And the only law that we passed after the Covenant mass shooting was to protect firearms manufacturers. So what we're seeing is a Republican supermajority that is beholden to the gun industry -- that is beholden to gun extremists -- that is beholden to the NRA, and that is not listening to the people of Tennessee. (...) MSNBC's The Last Word April 12, 2024 10:37 a.m. Eastern STATE SENATOR LONDON LAMAR (D-TN): This is irresponsible! The public school teachers don't even want the bill! They're not even asking you for this! We just passed legislation to have SROs in every school -- can we see if that works yet?! I'm upset not out of -- because I don't like you all individually -- because I'm mad because this bill puts my child at risk and all the mothers I hear that just got put out! They're saying their children at risk! Look at that gallery! They're asking you not to do this! (editing jump) Put partisan politics aside -- I ask you this all the time, but this bill is dangerous. Don't do it. (editing jump) Teachers don't want it, the school districts don't want it, nobody doesn't want it, it's not going to work! It's going to cause more school shootings. (editing jump) What happened today is a gallery full of mothers who are concerned, and we put them out because you're trying to put guns in teachers' hands! We ought to be ashamed, Mr. Speaker. KATIE PHANG: That was the scene in the Tennessee Senate this week. State Senator London Lamar with her eight-month-old baby and a microphone in her hands begging Republicans not to vote to put more guns in schools. Yes, more guns, not less. This week, Republican lawmakers in Tennessee advanced legislation that would allow some teachers to carry concealed guns. Last April, just days after three children and three staff members were killed in a mass shooting at the Covenant school in Nashville, Donald Trump gave a speech pushing for armed teachers. And so a year later Tennessee Republicans have decided that their solution to gun violence in schools is more guns in schools. (...) Representative Pearson, I know that you're familiar with the being silenced when you're trying to speak out in that hall, but what is the justification that is coming from your colleagues on the other side of the aisle to vote on a bill and approve it that is not wanted by anyone? It's been tried before in some other counties in Tennessee -- hasn't worked -- and I understand there's an opt out in this legislation, but -- and I understand maybe that the voices in support of this say, "Well, there's training, and there's, you know, a certain component of it, but how is it possible that they're so tone deaf about what's really wanted to protect the children in these schools? STATE REPRESENATATIVE JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D-TN): This is a dangerous piece of legislation that puts at risk every child in our schools, including putting our teachers at risk as well. You don't have a single teacher in our district or in this state who are asking the legislature to pass this type of legislation. And they certainly aren't asking for us to do it by kicking out mothers from the galleries and those who are advocating on behalf of their kids in the process. What we are seeing is the cowardice of the Republican party in our state, refusing to address the epidemic of gun violence, which is the number one killer of our children, and instead of ending the epidemic by doing something about the guns that are being proliferated in our communities and doing something that would stand up to the National Rifle Association and the Tennessee Firearms Association, and they're attacking parents, and they're actually making our schools less safe. They're bringing guns into gun-free zones, and this is only going to have horrendous ramifications for children who will access these weapons and these guns -- for teachers who might accidentally shoot or harm their students. These are the real challenges that are going to come from this terrible legislation. (...) PHANG: I want to harp on this for our viewers to understand. Mothers like Beth Gebhard who talk about this experience, they're being silenced. These are not politicians, right? These are not -- these are not lobbyists for anti-gun or anti-2nd Amendment kind of propositions, These are parents that only want to keep their kids safe. And yet they're being silenced. They're being removed from a public forum because they just want to share their concerns about really flawed and dangerous policies and legislation that's getting passed in your state? STATE REPRESENTATIVE PEARSON: This is the way that the Tennessee Republican party works. They silence the voices of dissent in order that they can corrupt, be corrupt and use their power and corrupted absolutely using it. And they wield it against anybody that they believe is going to stand up against them. This is why Representative Jones and I were expelled. This is why the mothers are consistently being kicked out of the gallery and kicked out of committee rooms even during our special session to address public safety. They're not interested in the safety of our kids -- they're not interested in the safety of our teachers. They do not want to end the gun violence epidemic -- they only want to proliferate it with bad policies and legislation that is supported by the Tennessee Firearms Association and supported by the National Rifle Association. They are not interested in making our communities safer (...) MSNBC's The Last Word April 26, 2024 10:43 p.m. Eastern ALI VELSHI: That was the scene at the Tennessee house chamber this week after Republican lawmakers passed a bill that would allow some teachers to carry concealed guns. There were vocal protests inside the gallery against putting more guns in schools. State troopers once again removed folks for protesting. Inside the chamber, Democratic legislators pleaded with their colleagues not to pass the bill. They argued that in the year since the Nashville Covenant mass shooting, more should have been accomplished by this legislative body. (...) Joining us now is the Tennessee Democratic State Representative, Justin J. Pearson. ... The country came to know you because of the stand that you and some of your colleagues in the legislature took about having government take a stronger hand in trying to deal with the disasters that you faced in Tennessee -- the disaster that repeats itself across this country -- and yet here we are today. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN J. PEARSON (D-TN): Yeah, I mean, the gun violence epidemic in our state is the leading cause of death for our children. We have a responsibility and an obligation to do everything possible to actually make our schools and our communities safer, and the Republican party of Tennessee led by Cameron Sexton and William Lamberth refuse to do that. Unfortunately, they view arming teachers, increasing the amount of gun violence in schools and in our communities as some form of a solution. No one would have ever imagined that after we experienced the tragedy that we did in the wake of the Covenant shooting, nor the hundreds of lives that we've lost due to gun violence just a year ago where 500 people in our state, that our resolution would be: "Let's try and increase the probability of having more gun violence." We didn't pass any red flag laws or extreme risk protection orders. We haven't addressed anything as relates to gun safety storage, and this is the signature piece of legislation the Republicans have pushed, which is antithetical to anything that anyone in the state of Tennessee that I talked to have wanted to see or for us to get to make our communities safer. VELSHI: I'm curious as to how it even came to be because if you were going to just not bother, then just don't bother. This seems to be possibly one worse than not bothering. (...) MSNBC's The Katie Phang Show April 27, 2024 12:33 p.m. Eastern KATIE PHANG: So another important issue I know is very near and dear to you is gun violence and the prevention of it. It's also something that's been a very important part of my ability to use my platform to spread awareness. In Tennessee, as you know, passing a law that now allows teachers in schools to have concealed firearms. The Republicans there saying that it's for school safety and to improve the safety of students in schools. What are your thoughts, Congressman, about the fact that Tennessee now allows this? CONGRESSMAN MAXWELL ALEJANDRO FROST (D-FL): Well, this is people legislating without looking at the facts and without looking at data and just simply doing the bidding of the gun lobby, which seeks to pass legislation that will sell more guns. That's all the gun lobby and the NRA cares about -- selling more guns to teachers, to kids, whoever. And so, unfortunately, they're not looking at the data that shows us that when there's more guns in the equation, guess what. It doesn't make you safer -- it makes you less safe. Not just that, but our teachers are already drastically underpaid, especially in the South. We already have a huge teacher shortage, and, on top of that, to add insult to injury, you want to add to the job description: "Carry a firearm and protect your students that way"? Come on, give me a damn break. So this is just politicians doing the bidding of the NRA and not actually doing what we need to do to save lives and keep people safe. And we're so happy and lucky we have great progressive advocates like Justin Jones, Justin Pearson, Gloria Johnson -- they are fighting in Tennessee. But it just goes to show that this fight in the South is real, but we're not doing it alone. (...) MSNBC's Alex Witt Reports April 27, 2024 3:49 p.m. ALEX WITT: Starting now in Tennessee, teachers and other school administrators are now officially allowed to carry concealed handguns on school grounds. Governor Bill Lee signing the bill one year after six people were killed, including three children, when a gunman opened fire at a private Christian school in Nashville. Joining me now is Democratic State Representative Justin Jones, who was expelled from the state house after joining a protest supporting gun reform in the wake of that shooting. He was then voted back in back to office in a special election. Welcome, Justin, I'm glad to have you here. Um, look, there was significant tension as this bill was approved, and I know you were banned from speaking on that floor for two days, and you say you were physically shoved by one of your Republican colleagues. It stemmed from you filming these chants from the gallery. Let's play this up. (clip of protesters in capitol chanting, "Blood on your hands") What happened there? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES (D-TN): Yes, well, Alex, it is a terrible time in Tennessee because the governor has signed this horrific law that's going to allow teachers to carry guns. This is the largest expansion of gun laws in our state since the mass shooting at Covenant, and in that gallery, you see my constituents. You see mothers, you see grandmothers, and parents and teachers and students telling my Republican colleagues that they will have blood on their hands. For over a year now, Tennesseans have been showing up to our capital week after week, begging for common sense gun laws, and the governor just spit on the face of all these people and spit on the graves of the six people killed by signing this law. Nothing to reign in gun violence like common sense gun laws that would expand universal background checks, ban assault weapons, red flag laws. Instead, he's putting a law to arm teachers -- something that no teachers want in our state. WITT: Wow. STATE REPRESENTATIVE: JONES: And it's an insult to Tennesseans. WITT: Justin, I want to talk about the bill specifically because, as we understand it, a staff member would have to complete 40 hours of training, get a background check and a psychological evaluation. They would then also need the approval of school officials and local law enforcement. But, to your point, parents would not be notified because of confidentiality, meaning parents won't have any idea at all if their child's teacher has a gun in the classroom. So here's the question: Would teachers with guns have made a difference in the Covenant school shooting when the killer had an AR-15 assault rifle and a pistol caliber carbine with 30 rounds in it? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: I mean, that is the insanity, Alex, is that, "What is one handgun going to do against a military grade assault weapon? Nothing. The Covenant school had armed security. I mean, you saw in Uvalde officers were afraid to go in a building with these assault weapons. So this is just a false solution. And really what it's about -- it's about this idea of trying to proliferate guns in our state. The number one cause of death for children right now is gun violence, and so it's about proliferating guns and not doing anything to reign in the issue of this uniquely American problem of gun violence. WITT: Let me ask you this in regards to that. Is this putting too much responsibility on teachers? If, let's say, they are paralyzed by fear during a school shooting and they can't shoot, or they accidentally shoot a student or anybody else, could they be blamed for what happens? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: That's the point we got no clarity about, is who has liability. They refuse to answer that because the real liability is on the governor and my Republican colleagues, and let me just -- I want to say this, too, that this is really also about -- I've been thinking about this in my head about trying to make parents afraid to send their kids to public schools because so many parents I've talked to in my district have emailed me in my office saying, "We don't know if we can send our kids to schools anymore because we're scared." And it's really about this idea of trying to destroy public education, which the governor has been trying to do, and in pushing guns in our communities. And now they're in tandem. And so teachers are not asking for this -- they're asking for more supplies -- they're asking for psychologists and counselors, better pay. No teachers in Tennessee are asking to have this law to allow them to carry guns. It's insanity, and it's morally inexcusable. WITT: And -- and Governor Lee, couldn't he have allowed the bill to become law even without his signature. I mean, the fact that he signed it -- he wanted to put his name on this bill -- what does it tell you? STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: I mean, it tell us that our governor has no conscience and no courage. He lost a friend in the Covenant mass shooting -- one of his wife's friends -- and he told us he was going to do something to, you know, to reign in gun violence, and he's failed Tennesseans -- he's bowed down to the extremists. And he's really about arming these extreme elements in our community because not only are we talking about arming teachers, but the governor has allowed the Proud Boys to come to our capitol armed -- they've allowed neo-Nazis to march three blocks away from the capitol where I am right now to march armed. And it's about arming these extreme elements in our community that are leaving us with trauma and terror. And it's at the expense of our children's lives, so he should be ashamed of himself, and it is a dereliction of duty and a dereliction of his oath of office that each of us take as elected officials on Tennessee. WITT: Democratic State Representative Justin Jones, let's just put it this way. I'm really glad you were voted back in office. Thank you so much for our conversation. (...) CNN This Morning Weekend April 28, 2024 7:37 a.m. Eastern VICTOR BLACKWELL: What informs the decision for arming the teachers instead of hiring more law enforcement to patrol these schools? STEPHEN GUTOWSKI, CNN FIREARMS ANALYST: Well, I think there's two reasons that advocates go this path. One is that it is actually quite difficult to get enough school resource officers to fill every school on a consistent basis, especially in more rural areas. And the second is that advocates of armed teachers believe that having several people armed in a school will increase the reaction time in case there is some sort of shooting. So those tend to be the main selling points. (...)  MSNBC's Velshi April 28, 2024 10:40 a.m. ALI VELSHI: Despite resounding pushback from parents and Democratic lawmakers in Tennessee, on Friday the Republican governor, Bill Lee, signed a shocking bill into law that gives counties the ability to decide whether some educators can legally carry guns in public schools. Republicans in the state house and senate pushed this bill through, claiming that it would reduce gun violence in schools and bolster safety. (...) Under the new legislation, some faculty and staff will be able to carry concealed handguns on school grounds but first need to complete 40 hours of training and pass criminal and mental health background checks. But Democrats have continually argued that the state would better served by, among other measures, employing background checks and requiring safe storage of firearms. As legislative debate ensued, leading up to the passage and signing of the bill, Democrats in the house signed off. (clips of Democrat legislators complaining about the bill) You'll probably remember the two people whom you just saw -- they are the Tennessee state representatives Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson. Two of them -- along with Representative Justin J. Pearson whom I spoke to on Friday night -- became the faces of the anti-gun movement in the state last year following the shooting at Nashville's Covenant school. Three children and three adults were killed in that attack. In the wake of the shooting, the Tennessee Three -- as these three have come to be called -- joined thousands in protest of the state's gun laws on the state's house floor. The decision to fight back -- small acts of courage -- were not met without consequence. Both Jones and Pearson --= who are black -- were booted from the Republican-controlled state house for their actions. Meanwhile, Johnson -- who is white -- dodged expulsion by one vote. However, both men returned to their seats last fall after their local governments voted to reinstate them. In light of the passage of this new gun law, it's abundantly clear that the Tennessee Three's fight for more sensible gun laws is far from over. On the other side of the break, both Justin Jones and Gloria Johnson join me to explain why this new law threatens the safety of classrooms in Tennessee. (...) Friends, thank you for being with us this morning and for your continued fight for the safety of our students and our citizens. Representative Jones, you posted on X that (Tennessee) House Speaker Cameron Sexton is growing "drunk with power" and that we are, quote, "witnessing the death of democracy in light of what happened with this vote. Talk to me about what you see happening here. Your state surprised me again in that there were lots of options between doing nothing and doing something, and they seem to have skipped through all of the more productive possibilities and went for the fairly absurd one. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JUSTIN JONES (D-TN): Yes, Ali, well, this is a very sad time for Tennessee. The trauma of our community is once again coming to the surface because at the end of the session my Republican colleagues decided to push forward and push through this asinine, insane bill to arm teachers as the gallery was full of Tennesseans -- teachers, mothers, students, clergy -- begging them not to, including families whose children are at the Covenant school, including families who have lost loved ones in shootings here in Nashville. And rather than hear them, Republicans pushed this bill forward by cutting off debate and then having the gallery cleared of the public and media when the people in the gallery chanted, "Shame on you," and that "there's blood on your hands." They had me censured for recording my constituents being drug out the gallery by state troopers. And so I said online that this is fascism -- this is a step against democracy -- against -- and toward authoritarianism and toward this, no, just shameful trajectory of arming our schools more and more -- putting more guns in schools -- when people have been begging for a year for common sense gun laws that protect kids and not guns. And the governor, by signing that bill, has spit in the face of these families.  He is a coward, and he is somebody who is going to be on the wrong side of history here in Tennessee. (...) STATE REPRESENTATIVE GLORIA JOHNSON (D-TN): ...And they need to start listening to teachers, and I can tell you that teachers did not come to them with the legislation. Every major county has already said, "No, since this is permissive, we are not arming teachers." They've already said no. No one asked them for this bill. VELSHI: Yeah. Somebody -- (cross talk) -- the question is, no one or is it lobbies that continue to cause these legislators to do things that are completely not in the interests of -- don't have the support of their voters. (...) STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: What I think this is really about is that the governor is mad that his privatization of public schools bill failed this session, and so this is a way to further undermine education. So I want to connect the dots between this proliferation of guns and their attack on public schools. Because what we're hearing is that people are afraid to send their kids to schools. So what was the thing they did after the voucher bill died to try and privatize our schools? The coward Ryan Williams -- my colleague from Cookeville -- said we're going to push through this bill to arm teachers, and now parents are scared to send their kids -- VELSHI: Yeah, up. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: -- to public schools. That's really what the goal is, I think, Ali. I really -- VELSHI: Yeah. STATE REPRESENTATIVE JONES: -- think that's the purpose of this legislation. VELSHI: I don't want my kids going to a place where there's yet more guns in the school. I'd like zero guns in the schools. Thanks to both of you. It is remarkable what you have both done and your other colleagues have done for democracy and for standing up for it. When they tell me, "You know, there's not enough younger people getting involved in politics and it's all -- it's all corporatized," and all that, I point to you Tennessee Three to remind people that there are a lot of people fighting the battle right out there all the time, and we should be proud of that. Thank you.

NYT's Frank Bruni Blames Trump, Mike Johnson for Escalation at Columbia

Appearing as a guest on Tuesday's Erin Burnett OutFront, New York Times columnist Frank Bruni tried to blame Republicans Donald Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson for the escalation by far-left anti-Israel protesters at Columbia University that included taking over and occupying an academic building. Host Erin Burnett recalled that other schools had had more success in negotiating the demands of protesters, and then posed: "What do you think is different here about Columbia? There has been no ability to tamp it down." Bruni quickly pointed a finger at Speaker Johnson recently visiting Columbia University and calling for more to be done to stop Jewish students from being harassed: BRUNI: Yeah, I mean, part of it is, everything that happens in New York City is on steroids, right?.. I also think that various political actors -- and this is indicative of our grievance culture. Various political actors have decided to choose this particular circumstance to come in and choose their sides and make their statements, and I think that has accelerated and amplified things. Mike Johnson, for example -- the Speaker of the House -- a week ago, I was writing about how much I admired the fact that he made common cause with Democrats -- changed his mind about Ukraine aid, and then, the next day or the day beyond that, he goes up to New York -- he didn't need to be here -- and he says, "Maybe we should bring in the National Guard." So a politician calling for less hate is "accelerating and amplifying" the problem, not the protesters. After Burnett recalled that she had been there during Speaker Johnson's visit and was surprised about the unhappy students surrounding him, Bruni added: BRUNI: But did he need to do that? You know, so many of the voices that have joined the situation and have shouted about it -- because that's what we do these days -- we shout, we don't talk. Have they been there for -- to score political points and their own purposes? Or have they come there really to come and solve this? I think this has been a sort of -- this particular situation has attracted political actors scoring points in a way that the situation on some of those other campuses have not. Once again, what are the protesters doing there if not to "score political points"?  Burnett -- who last week pressed Speaker Johnson from the left on the issue of him criticizing anti-Israel protesters -- voiced agreement with her left-leaning guest: BURNETT: Yeah, right. Maybe somehow maybe because it's Columbia. He came, he brought -- he brought four -- three or four other representatives with him, and I, you know, I was standing next to him. I was -- the students couldn't fully hear him, and that was a good thing because if they had heard what they were saying -- in one case, saying, "You all should be ashamed" -- there would have been a true outcry. The intention of them appearing was for the press conference part, not to actually talk to the students. Again, as if the protesters aren't there for the cameras. A bit later, after the CNN host recalled that seeing broken windows, "I'm thinking of that indelible image of the Capitol, far-right protesters on January 6. Here we are on April 30, people who would identify themselves as far-left protesters doing the same thing." Bruni suggested that President Trump had culpability because he has defended January 6 rioters: BRUNI: Well, you do have to ask if there's a through line from one to the other. I mean, on January 6, we had a President still at the time -- now a former President who has romanticized what's happened there -- who has sent the message that if you really believe in something and if you're fighting for it, you do the most provocative, disruptive, confrontational thing possible. That's what the rioters on January 6 did. That's what these students and their non-student allies, whatever you want to call them, were doing here. There's this -- it's all the same sort of ethos -- the same sort of approach. It was not mentioned that left-wing anti-police protesters showed plenty of ability to cause damage (more than a billion dollars) during the summer of 2020 before the Capitol Hill riots of 2021 had even happened. Transcript follows: CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront April 30, 2024 7:43 a.m. Eastern ERIN BURNETT: So, Frank, I'm just trying to understand -- and I know every situation because there's different individuals involved, right -- but Yale and Brown today succeeded -- two different ways but negotiating so that the encampments were dismantled and things appear to be going back to normal. Some of the students, you know, in the case of one of the universities -- okay, look at the police are walking here as we're talking so we're seeing where they're going. As they do that, Frank, what do you think is different here about Columbia? There has been no ability to tamp it down. FRANK BRUNI, NEW YORK TIMES: Yeah, I mean, part of it is, everything that happens in New York City is on steroids right now. We don't know exactly who's in that building and what effect that has on it. I also think that various political actors -- and this is indicative of our grievance culture. Various political actors have decided to choose this particular circumstance to come in and choose their sides and make their statements, and I think that has accelerated and amplified things. Mike Johnson, for example -- the Speaker of the House -- a week ago, I was writing about how much I admired the fact that he made common cause with Democrats -- changed his mind about Ukraine aid, and then, the next day or the day beyond that, he goes up to New York -- he didn't need to be here -- and he says, "Maybe we should bring in the National Guard." We have two -- BURNETT: I was there, by the way, on the steps at Columbia when he was there, and he came out, and he said and did what he intended to do. BRUNI: Right. BURNETT: But he was clearly taken aback and surprised by how many students were there. And at that point -- there were only a few hundred -- but they gathered -- and they were not happy, which is not what he was expecting. BRUNI: But did he need to do that? You know, so many of the voices that have joined the situation and have shouted about it -- because that's what we do these days -- we shout, we don't talk. Have they been there for -- to score political points and their own purposes? Or have they come there really to come and solve this? I think this has been a sort of -- this particular situation has attracted political actors scoring points in a way that the situation on some of those other campuses have not. BURNETT: Yeah, right. Maybe somehow maybe because it's Columbia. He came, he brought -- he brought four -- three or four other representatives with him, and I, you know, I was standing next to him. I was -- the students couldn't fully hear him, and that was a good thing because if they had heard what they were saying -- in one case, saying, "You all should be ashamed" -- there would have been a true outcry. The intention of them appearing was for the press conference part, not to actually talk to the students. BRUNI: They came here because New York City is the media capital. Where are you and I sitting right now? We're sitting in a studio in New York City. They came here because more cameras are here. More media companies are here than in any other city. (...) BURNETT: These kids were offered -- the ones that are students, you know, that they would be able to not be expelled, you know, that if they would just to sign papers to back off today. Which at Yale, Brown -- this seemed to work to deescalate -- did not happen in this case. But when we look at the images of where -- I don't know how many people are in there and how many of them are students, but right now, in Hamilton Hall, in Columbia, right near these images that you're looking at where when the police go in that is where we anticipate this confrontation will happen -- we saw the students occupy it and whoever else was with them, broken windows. And the first thing when you see that broken window, I'm thinking of that indelible image of the Capitol, far-right protesters on January 6. Here we are on April 30, people who would identify themselves as far-left protesters doing the same thing. BRUNI: Well, you do have to ask if there's a through line from one to the other. I mean, on January 6, we had a President still at the time -- now a former President who has romanticized what's happened there -- who has sent the message that if you really believe in something and if you're fighting for it, you do the most provocative, disruptive, confrontational thing possible. That's what the rioters on January 6 did. That's what these students and their non-student allies, whatever you want to call them, were doing here. There's this -- it's all the same sort of ethos -- the same sort of approach.

CNN Host Victor Blackwell Touts Book Blaming Racism for Wealth Gap in USA

On Saturday's First of All show, CNN host Victor Blackwell devoted a segment to blaming racism for income differences between whites and blacks as he interviewed a liberal journalist who wrote about book about the "white bonus" she claims to have benefited from as a white American. Tracie McMillan, author of The White Bonus, suggested that racism in the present still holds black Americans down as she recommended ending racism as the remedy to lagging black incomes.  Blackwell tied the term to the loaded concept of "white privilege" as he introduced the segment: Agree with the concept or not, you've probably heard, though, about white privilege -- societal and social privileges tied to race. But have you heard about the "white bonus." Federal data shows that for ever dollar that white Americans make, black Americans make 76 cents. In 2022, black Americans' median household wealth was almost $45,000 -- the median wealth for white households, $285,000. Bringing aboard author Tracie McMillan as a guest, the CNN host added: The distribution of financial assets in this country has been shaped by systemic racism, written laws, unspoken rules that for hundreds of years have worked to the detriment of minorities and to the benefit of white people. My next guest, journalists Tracie McMillan, set out to put a number on just how much of a benefit she has received. She examines the history of five families, including her own, and published her findings in her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. After Blackwell began by asking his guest why she decided to write the book, she began: Sure, well, you know, I work as a journalist, but I also am a white person in this country, and I felt like I needed to be honest about what I was getting for being white, and, you know, I don't make a ton of money, so for me the conversations around white privilege usually sort of center on quote, sort of "racial privilege" and "class privilege," and I wanted a way to get at this idea of "What do I get? What do we all get for being white?" McMillan then recalled that she wanted to measure the "racial advantage" she had received in her life, leading Blackwell to follow up: "So let's talk about the number. Your estimate is that you have benefited from your whiteness to the amount of $371,934.30. Explain how you got to that number." McMillan recounted that her family inherited a significant amount of money from a grandfather who had been allowed to prosper as a banker in the 1920s as being among other reasons her family benefited from being white, leading Blackwell to conclude by asking what the country should do about the data she has collected, leading her to suggest that racism in the present is still to blame for wealth inequality between blacks and whites: BLACKWELL: Well, Tracie, we only have about 45 seconds or so left, but what do we now do with this? Now that you have calculated it and we all know that, according to your estimate, what it is, what do we do with it? McMILLAN: I mean, fight to end racism, right? I think the -- something I also look at is the cost of racism to Americans, including white Americans, right? Racism has impoverished our democracy and eviscerated our safety net. Most of us need access to those things to survive. And I think you know, even if you go back through my numbers. I wouldn't need most of that money from my family if we had affordable education and housing and health care in this country, right? And so I think for all of us, there's  a real vested interest not in fighting racism as charity but as something that hurts everybody and is worth fighting against. The issue of why Asian Americans, in spite of being a a racial minority, tend to have higher incomes than do white Americans -- which undermines the argument that racial discrimination is what causes different groups to make less money -- was not mentioned. PS: Former New York Times reporter Steven Greenhouse endorsed the book: "The White Bonus is an unusually daring book that explores how racism has given unfair advantages to white Americans as we all pursue the American dream. Tracie McMillan profiles a range of Americans to show how their "white bonus” results in advantages that can total hundreds of thousands of dollars. This original, compelling work investigates an undeniable inequity that America has too long ignored." Transcript follows: CNN's First of All with Victor Blackwell April 27, 2024 8:47 a.m. Eastern VICTOR BLACKWELL: Agree with the concept or not, you've probably heard, though, about white privilege -- societal and social privileges tied to race. But have you heard about the "white bonus." Federal data shows that for ever dollar that white Americans make, black Americans make 76 cents. In 2022, black Americans' median household wealth was almost $45,000 -- the median wealth for white households, $285,000. The distribution of financial assets in this country has been shaped by systemic racism, written laws, unspoken rules that for hundreds of years have worked to the detriment of minorities and to the benefit of white people. My next guest, journalists Tracie McMillan, set out to put a number on just how much of a benefit she has received. She examines the history of five families, including her own, and published her findings in her new book, The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. Tracie, thank you for being with me. Such a fascinating approach to so many things we talk about on this show -- the disparity of investment; diversity, equity and inclusion. What led you to the book? TRACIE McMILLAN, AUTHOR OF THE WHITE BONUS: Sure, well, you know, I work as a journalist, but I also am a white person in this country, and I felt like I needed to be honest about what I was getting for being white, and, you know, I don't make a ton of money, so for me the conversations around white privilege usually sort of center on quote, sort of "racial privilege" and "class privilege," and I wanted a way to get at this idea of "What do I get? What do we all get for being white?" And I thought the best way to do that would be to try and figure out if I could estimate how much sort of racial advantage had shaped my life just in real terms, right? Privilege is super amorphous, sort of ghost like you can't grab onto it. But if you have a number, then you can actually have a conversation. BLACKWELL: So let's talk about the number. Your estimate is that you have benefited from your whiteness to the amount of $371,934.30. Explain how you got to that number. McMILLAN: Sure. So it's comprised of two sums, so there's both a family bonus and a social bonus, right? So when we're talking about a white bonus, we're looking at sort of the amount of money an individual white person has gotten or saved because of white supremacy in policy or practice, right? So, for me, about $146,000 of that comes from money that I got from my family -- that I then, you know, when I went back through our family history, can pretty reliably say we wouldn't have had access to that money if we weren't white, right? In my family, you know, I didn't know this when I went into the project, but all the sort of money that gets passed down to me comes from one grandfather who became a banker in the 1920s and '30s. So, in 1930, there were about a quarter of a million bankers in the U.S., only 80 of which were black. So very unlikely that he would have had that job and been able to accrue that kind of wealth if he hadn't have been white as well as, you know, he had a racial covenant on the house that he owned and then sold and was able to go into assisted living as an elder. So that's $146,000 there. But, then, really, right, the social bonus that I get as an adult in the world, so people offering me jobs, offering me apartments. I mean, these are things I have to qualify for and sort of work at, right, but I get given these opportunities. All of that combined with being able to build equity through property ownership in Detroit where I was only able to buy housing because racism had ruined the housing market there, right. That comes up to about $226,000. BLACKWELL: Well, Tracie, we only have about 45 seconds or so left, but what do we now do with this? Now that you have calculated it and we all know that, according to your estimate, what it is, what do we do with it? McMILLAN: I mean, fight to end racism, right? I think the -- something I also look at is the cost of racism to Americans, including white Americans, right? Racism has impoverished our democracy and eviscerated our safety net. Most of us need access to those things to survive. And I think you know, even if you go back through my numbers. I wouldn't need most of that money from my family if we had affordable education and housing and health care in this country, right? And so I think for all of us, there's  a real vested interest not in fighting racism as charity but as something that hurts everybody and is worth fighting against. BLACKWELL: Tracie McMillan, I'm going to read the title of this book again - The White Bonus: Five Families and the Cash Value of Racism in America. Thank you so much for being with us. We've got a good write on it on CNN.com right now.

Amanpour Cues Guest to Fret Over Trump Undoing Climate Regulations

On Monday's Amanpour & Co. -- simulcast on both PBS and CNN International -- host Christiane Amanpour promoted the liberal alarmist view that a President Donald Trump would be a danger to the environment as she interviewed ProPublica's Abrahm Lustgarten. Pivoting from a segment that discussed the possible impact on foreign policy of President Trump being elected again, Amanpour fretted: Now, the other concern about Donald Trump is his effect on the climate after rolling back many environmental provisions in his first term, not to mention pulling out of the Paris climate accord. April 22nd, today, is World Earth Day, and my next guest says the verdict is in: Americans are already being displaced by the climate crisis, and it will only get worse. Abrahm Lustgarten is a climate reporter, and he works for ProPublica. His new book, On the Move, explores how climate is about to profoundly reshape American life. After Lustgarten promoted the prediction that wildfires caused by rising temperatures will affect migration within the U.S., Amanpour followed up by repeating the liberal trope blaming global warming for Hurricane Katrina's devastation of New Orleans in 2005: ...in your book, you write, "People have always moved as their environment has changed, but today, the climate is warming faster, and the population is larger than at any point in history." And in one -- one chapter, you talk about Hurricane Katrina, and what it did to Louisiana. You detail the life of one woman who became a climate migrant -- just one story -- but explain how climate, you know, affects just this one individual. Her guest recalled the case of a woman who left New Orleans after the 2005 flooding and gave up on the possibility of ever living there again in spite of initially intending to move back. But the strength of Hurricane Katrina when it hit New Orleans as a category 3 storm was not unprecedented, and the catastrophe happened because of a failure to maintain the levees so they would hold the flood waters back. And on the subject of recent hurricanes being stronger and more frequent than in the past, it has been pointed out by right-leaning meteorologist Joe Bastardi that hurricane activity goes through cycles that last for decades, and that there have been previous periods of strong storm activity or more frequent storms. According to NOAA's list of hurricanes that have made landfall in the U.S. since 1850, in the 25 calendar years from 1998 through 2022, there were 15 hurricanes of at least category 3 strength that made landfall in the United States, compared to 18 between 1945 and 1969. Additionally, between 1998 and 2022, there were seven hurricanes that were at least a category 4 while, between 1945 and 1969, there were 11. The segment concluded with more handwringing about how Trump might effect the climate if he gets back into office: AMANPOUR: Are you concerned about, you know, since the evidence of Trump in his first term was to, you know, roll back so many protections, are any locked in and sort of Trump-proof now? LUSTGARTEN: No, nothing's locked in. And there's enormous risk of reversing some of the positive progress, not both American emissions cuts, which have been legislated, but the example that we set globally. So I think it's a very precarious position, and if you take back some of those measures, you know, it will have dramatic consequences globally. AMANPOUR: Abrahm Lustgarten, thank you so much indeed. Transcript follows: PBS's Amanpour & Co./CNN International's Amanpour April 22, 2024 CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Now, the other concern about Donald Trump is his effect on the climate after rolling back many environmental provisions in his first term, not to mention pulling out of the Paris climate accord. April 22nd, today, is World Earth Day, and my next guest says the verdict is in: Americans are already being displaced by the climate crisis, and it will only get worse. Abrahm Lustgarten is a climate reporter, and he works for ProPublica. His new book, On the Move, explores how climate is about to profoundly reshape American life. He's joining me now from Berkeley, California. (...) ABRAHM LUSTGARTEN, PROPUBLICA: -- and we had a terrible fire season -- this was 2018-2019, string of fires near where live in the San Francisco Bay area, and it really made clear how much Americans are also being effected by rising heat, by smoke, by the danger of fires, by sea level rise on our coasts, and caused me to start looking, not only at my own situation, but to consider, from a reporter's perspective, what this means for Americans as the climate gets hotter. AMANPOUR: So, we're going to discuss the effect in a moment, but in your book, you write, "People have always moved as their environment has changed, but today, the climate is warming faster, and the population is larger than at any point in history." And in one -- one chapter, you talk about Hurricane Katrina, and what it did to Louisiana. You detail the life of one woman who became a climate migrant -- just one story -- but explain how climate, you know, affects just this one individual. LUSTGARTEN: Yeah, so, Collette is the subject of this story, and she is from a town called Slidell, Louisiana, just a little bit north of New Orleans, and when Hurricane Katrina struck in 2005 in her area, her town was really devastated. She was living in Washington, D.C., and she moved back to Louisiana, and she moved back with this hope of -- from a legal perspective and from an organizational perspective, and as a member of her community, seeing if she could help rebuild and help keep that community in place and kind of prevent this migration -- this diaspora. And her story is a 15-year battle to do that, and sort of slowly coming to realize that, in some sense, it is a losing proposition or a difficult proposition in southern Louisiana, and that's because Hurricane Katrina, so many years ago, was really the start of a shift of population out of that region, and we see, you know, along the Louisiana coast, which is sinking and being subsumed by sea level rise already, a gradual decline in population, and so, Collette's story is kind of an example of the nuance of American climate migration, where it's not black and white, it is not a disaster happens and people move, but it is sort of a long and emotional battle... (...) AMANPOUR: You also have a chapter called "The Great American Climate Scam." What is that? LUSTGARTEN: Well, one huge question that comes up when you look demographically at where people live in the United States is why -- as climate impacts have grown, as hurricanes have become more common and more powerful, and as heat has overwhelmed the South -- why those are still some of the fastest growing parts of the country, and there's a lot of reasons for that, but one of the sets of reasons is a host of perverse incentives that the United States has always had to attract people and effectively blind them from the risk that they face in moving to places like coastal Florida, and one of those subsidies is the provision of homeowners insurance, or property insurance, and Florida's a great example of this. After Hurricane Andrew in 1992, insurers were leaving the state, and it might have suggested that property was uninsurable, but the state stepped in and said, "We don't want all these people to leave the state because of this economic risk, so we are going to provide our own insurance," and so they created a state-subsidized plan that basically said, "Anybody can get insurance, and we'll promise it's going to be cheaper than any other insurance on the market." And that's the type of thing that has attracted many more people to Florida and has been replicated across 30-odd states in the country, and that's the kind of just one example of policies that tend to sort of blunt the risk and the personal economic household decision-making that people have to make about where they live in this country. (...) AMANPOUR: Are you concerned about, you know, since the evidence of Trump in his first term was to, you know, roll back so many protections, are any locked in and sort of Trump-proof now? LUSTGARTEN: No, nothing's locked in. And there's enormous risk of reversing some of the positive progress, not both American emissions cuts, which have been legislated, but the example that we set globally. So I think it's a very precarious position, and if you take back some of those measures, you know, it will have dramatic consequences globally. AMANPOUR: Abrahm Lustgarten, thank you so much indeed.

NYT Reporter Stuns CNN's Goldberg by Spinning for Anti-Semitic Protesters

On Tuesday's CNN This Morning, while right-leaning contributor Jonah Goldberg was condemning the anti-Semitic, pro-Hamas rhetoric used by far-left protesters on college campuses, New York Times reporter Lulu Garcia-Navarro got snippy as she jumped in to cut him off and argue against the use of police against anti-Israel protesters harassing Jewish students. After host Kasie Hunt had just interviewed Congressman Josh Gottheimer -- a Jewish moderate Democrat from New Jersey -- about his visit to Columbia University and his calls for the university administration to protect Jewish students, she then went to Goldberg to begin a panel discussion. The right-leaning CNN contributor and Fox News alum complained: Look, I think the anti-Semitism stuff, particularly at Passover, is a big issue. It's a legitimate issue to talk about. It's a serious issue, and I think there's a lot of anti-Semitic stuff going on out there. But when you're saying you're Hamas, when you're praising Hamas, when you're praising Hezbollah, when you're saying you're going to globalize the intifada --     Garcia-Navarro took exception to his commentary and jumped in to interrupt: GARCIA-NAVARRO: Excuse me, I'm so sorry. GOLDBERG: Yeah? GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm sorry, but everyone is -- GOLDBERG: I'm going to finish my point. It means you're pro-terrorist. If you are celebrating Hamas, you are pro-terrorist. After declaring that she was "not disputing" that part of his analysis, she then spun for left-wing student organizers who did not act to stop anti-Semitic rhetoric at their demonstration by recalling that left-wing Jews had also protested against Israel: "Yeah, but what I'm saying is there are selective quotes that are being taken not from students themselves -- in the encampments in Columbia, they have said this -- there are Jewish students who are actually part of this." As Goldberg reacted with a befuddled facial expression, the Times journalist added: "And I just would say more broadly, when people are calling for action -- like Representative Gottheimer -- what are they actually calling for? You already had police go on --" Hunt jumped in to inject: "Well, hold on. If there are -- if the people in those encampments -- whether they're Columbia students or not -- if the university can clear them from that encampment, that is something the university can do." Garcia-Navarro continued: But they've already put -- let me just say how we got here. Columbia chose to bring police to clear the encampment that inflamed the situation to where you're now seeing these protests spread to Yale, to New York University, and beyond. I am -- many people have said that the action of bringing police into a group of people who are already feeling that they are sort of representative of the oppressed -- who are inspired by what happened with George Floyd in 2020 and seeing what is happening in Gaza, that that has really only acted as a catalyst here. And so I wonder at the wisdom of bringing in the armed police into what is essentially a university campus. Goldberg was visibly taken aback as the two went back and forth again: GOLDBERG: I question the wisdom of having a double standard that says it's okay to shout hateful pro-terrorist things at Jews, but you can't --you have to have total -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: No one is endorsing that. GOLDBERG (after looking shocked): A lot of people are endorsing that. A lot of people aren't -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: Not here. GOLDBERG: -- condemning it. Yeah. A lot of people aren't condemning it, and I -- look, I agree with you. Universities and the Democratic party and the left have a huge problem trying to figure out how to cut this Gordian knot that they've created for themselves. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: CNN This Morning April 23, 2024 6:55 a.m. Eastern (after interview with Congressman Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) (a moderate Democrat) about anti-Semitic protests on college campuses) KASIE HUNT: Just how troubling is this? And how did we get to this point? JONAH GOLDBERG, CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Gosh, you got an hour? HUNT: We have six minutes. GOLDBERG: I think there's a long tradition of campus protests in this country that goes back to before the founding. It has gotten much more intense whereas schools -- they consider part of your academic college experience to be protesters. And I think that sort of encouragement gives a lot of administrators a blind eye to when these things go off the rails. Look, I think the anti-Semitism stuff, particularly at Passover, is a big issue. It's a legitimate issue to talk about. It's a serious issue, and I think there's a lot of anti-Semitic stuff going on out there. But when you're saying you're Hamas, when you're praising Hamas, when you're praising Hezbollah, when you're saying you're going to globalize the intifada -- LULU GARCIA-NAVARRO,  NEW YORK TIMES JOURNALIST/CNN CONTRIBUTOR: Excuse me, I'm so sorry. GOLDBERG: Yeah? GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm sorry, but everyone is -- GOLDBERG: I'm going to finish my point. It means you're pro-terrorist. If you are celebrating Hamas, you are pro-terrorist. GARCIA-NAVARRO: I'm not disputing that. GOLDBERG: Okay, that's my point. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Yeah, but what I'm saying is there are selective quotes that are being taken not from students themselves -- in the encampments in Columbia, they have said this -- there are Jewish students who are actually part of this. And they are being used -- (Jonah Goldberg displays a confused facial expression) -- wait, let me -- let me -- GOLDBERG: You didn't let me finish my point -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: That's true. GOLDBERG: -- but go ahead. GARCIA-NAVARRO: And I just would say more broadly, when people are calling for action -- like Representative Gottheimer -- what are they actually calling for? You already had police go on -- KASIE HUNT: Well, hold on. If there are -- if the people in those encampments -- whether they're Columbia students or not -- if the university can clear them from that encampment, that is something the university can do. GARCIA-NAVARRO: But they've already put -- let me just say how we got here. Columbia chose to bring police to clear the encampment that inflamed the situation to where you're now seeing these protests spread to Yale, to New York University, and beyond. I am -- many people have said that the action of bringing police into a group of people who are already feeling that they are sort of representative of the oppressed -- who are inspired by what happened with George Floyd in 2020 and seeing what is happening in Gaza, that that has really only acted as a catalyst here. And so I wonder at the wisdom of bringing in the armed police into what is essentially a university campus. There have, you know, to try to be (inaudible) GOLDBERG: I question the wisdom of having a double standard that says it's okay to shout hateful pro-terrorist things at Jews, but you can't --you have to have total -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: No one is endorsing that. GOLDBERG: A lot of people are endorsing that. A lot of people aren't -- GARCIA-NAVARRO: Not here. GOLDBERG: -- condemning it. Yeah. A lot of people aren't condemning it, and I -- look, I agree with you. Universities and the Democratic party and the left have a huge problem trying to figure out how to cut this Gordian knot that they've created for themselves. But that doesn't mean I have to sort of condone or not call out. I spent -- I got a lot of scars from calling out horrible statements on the right over the last 10 years. I call out anti-Semitism and bigotry all the time on the right. GARCIA-NAVARRO: Of course. GOLDBERG: I don't hear a lot of that from the sort of Squad adjacent type people calling out this stuff on the left. HUNT: So John Fetterman had put out a tweet yesterday saying, like, "We are very close to Charlottesville for some of this stuff." Do you agree with that? GOLDBERG: I think the comparison can go too far, but I think Joe Biden's statement yesterday where he basically -- basically did "there are good people on both sides" kind of thing, was not the kind of moral clarity. The written statement was pretty good, but, look, Democrats have a huge problem here because there's a big chunk of Biden's coalition that does not like to hear criticism of any of this, you know, anti-Israel stuff, and they don't know how to get out of it.

MSNBC Blames TN Gun Laws for Shooting -- But Gunman Came from Illinois

On this past weekend's The Saturday Show, MSNBC host Jonathan Capehart teamed up with anti-gun activist Dr. Jonathan Metzl to spread misinformation about the effects of gun laws as the two discussed his book on the 25th anniversary of the Columbine school shootings. As the discussion turned to the 2018 attack on a Nashville Waffle House by 29-year-old Travis Reinking, Dr. Metzl reflexively blamed Tennessee's "pathologically loose gun laws" without divulging that the gunman had only somewhat recently moved into Tennessee from the blue state of Illinois. He soon complained about Tennessee expanding gun rights since the shooting: And so, instead, what we've seen is a dramatic expansion in every kind of law that led to the shooting. People can carry guns without permits now. We're arming teachers, long guns to people with 18 and older, so we have this total disconnect between what people know we need as a society to keep our country safe and what the political process in its gerrymandered state right now is delivering which is, unfortunately, more of these horrific mass shootings.     It was not mentioned that Illinois police had confiscated several guns from Reinking after he showed signs of schizophrenia, but then gave them to his father who then returned them to his son later. One of those firearms was used in the Nashville attack after the gunman moved to the state. Reinking's father was also convicted in connection with giving his son's firearms back to him. Capehart played the race card by hinting at the far-left liberal trope that the cops allowed Reinking to live because of he was white. "Dr. Metzl, a question occurs to me when we showed the Waffle House shooter. Was he taken alive after that -- that manhunt?" he played coy. Metzl obliged. Then, without offering any evidence that other racial groups are treated differently, Metzl claimed that the Waffle House gunman was allowed to keep his guns because he is white: Not only was he taken alive, what I show is there were five or six incidents before the shooting. He tried to jump the fence at the White House -- he came to the attention of the FBI -- he jumped naked into a pool and jumped out and shook his gun at people -- and so part of the story I ask in the book is, "What does it take to disarm a white man in America?" That's really the story of the book. And it turns out it's very hard because the laws -- the system -- people see a white man as a patriot. And, yes, he was taken alive after the shooting. He was not killed. Back in February, Metzl made another appearance on the same show to promote his book, and, on that occasion, spread misinformation blaming the loosening of gun laws in Missouri around 2008 for an increase in homicides in that state: Missouri had these pretty reasonable gun laws. I mean, there's a long history of gun ownership ... but until about 2008, believe it or not, you know, people would go to get a permit at the sheriff's office. ... And then they started overturning all the gun laws, overturning everything -- guns in parks, guns in bars, persons -- in 2021, made it almost a crime to even have cities mandate their own gun laws or enact federal -- any federal laws -- and what I saw was not just a rise in all kinds of gun injury and death gun, suicide gun, homicide -- all these things went up.     But, in fact, homicides in Missouri did not see a sustained increase until after 2014 when the Ferguson effect led to a surge in crime after the Mike Brown shooting in Ferguson, Missouri -- coinciding with a crime surge that was also seen across the country. The transcript is below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC's The Saturday Show April 20, 2024 6:52 p.m. Eastern JONATHAN CAPEHART: Dr. Metzl, your book takes a deep dive into the 2018 Waffle House shooting and how these mass shooters reveal a lot about the issues on race and mental health we continue to face in our country. Can you expand on that? Dr. JONATHAN METZL, AUTHOR OF WHAT WE'VE BECOME: Yeah, my book, What We've Become, really takes a deep dive into that 2018 Waffle House shooting. It was a shooting where a naked white shooter went into a Waffle House in a part of Nashville where it was 2:30 in the morning full of young adults of color celebrating after the clubs closed. And it was many things -- it was a mental ill mass shooting -- it was a race shooting -- it was a sign of what happens in a state like Tennessee with our pathologically loose gun laws. In many ways, it's the same thing (similar to the Columbine school shootings from 25 years ago). Our town came together and said, "Enough is enough -- we're going to -- we're going to turn course -- this has shown us the worst of humanity, and now let's turn course." I want to say there are a lot of people who are building from the horror of that moment -- people running for office. The mother of one of the victims of that shooting, Shaundelle Brooks, is running for state office in Tennessee. So there are many things that come out of the aftermath of the horror, but, again and again, it was a similar story, which was the people demanded some kind of action, but because Tennessee is a supermajority state, there was no pressure. Nobody was going to get pushed out of office or voted out of office. And so, instead, what we've seen is a dramatic expansion in every kind of law that led to the shooting. People can carry guns without permits now. We're arming teachers, long guns to people with 18 and older, so we have this total disconnect between what people know we need as a society to keep our country safe and what the political process in its gerrymandered state right now is delivering which is, unfortunately, more of these horrific mass shootings. CAPEHART: Dr. Metzl, question occurs to me when we showed the Waffle House shooter. Was he taken alive after that -- that manhunt? Dr. METZL: Yeah, that's kind of the story I tell in the book. Not only was he taken alive, what I show is there were five or six incidents before the shooting. He tried to jump the fence at the White House -- he came to the attention of the FBI -- he jumped naked into a pool and jumped out and shook his gun at people -- and so part of the story I ask in the book is, "What does it take to disarm a white man in America?" That's really the story of the book. And it turns out it's very hard because the laws -- the system -- people see a white man as a patriot. And, yes, he was taken alive after the shooting. He was not killed. CAPEHART: Dr. Jonathan Metzl, as always, thank you very much for coming -- for coming to the show. (...) MSNBC's The Saturday Show February 17, 2024 6:46 p.m. Eastern JONATHAN CAPEHART: You wrote -- you focus on three states. One was Missouri Missouri's lax gun laws and what those lax gun laws did to Missouri. Real quickly, talk about that. Dr. JONATHAN METZL, AUTHOR OF WHAT WE'VE BECOME: Well, I'm from Missouri -- I grew up in Kansas City -- my brothers and my dad were at the Super Bowl, you know. And so Kansas City is kind of home, and I know from this and from my own research that Missouri had these pretty reasonable gun laws. I mean, there's a long history of gun ownership -- of hunting -- of people caring about the 2nd Amendment -- but until about 2008, believe it or not, you know, people would go to get a permit at the sheriff's office. I interview people in my research -- it took about three seconds to get that. Nobody cared. And then they started overturning all the gun laws, overturning everything -- guns in parks, guns in bars, persons -- in 2021, made it almost a crime to even have cities mandate their own gun laws or enact federal -- any federal laws -- and what I saw was not just a rise in all kinds of gun injury and death gun, suicide gun, homicide -- all these things went up. But the bigger issue for me was that it was the end of a kind of particular public space that people stopped congregating in places like Swope Park -- this park in the middle of the town -- and the public pools -- because everybody was so worried that they were going to get shot. And so there was injury and death, but there was also the end -- I mean, for me in Missouri, there was a Super Bowl parade pretty much every day -- it just never got on the news. But people -- it wasn't weird to go in a public space with people who were different than you. And that's what these gun -- these loose gun laws killed, was the sense of camaraderie and civic engagement. CAPEHART: The name of the book is What We've Become: Living and Dying in a Country of Arms

NBC's Alba Wrongly Hints Columbine Mass Shooters Bought Guns Legally

In a few appearances on Thursday afternoon, NBC News White House correspondent Monica Alba helped spread misinformation about there being a link between gun shows and school shootings as she promoted President Joe Biden's latest push to require unlicensed gun dealers to do background checks on buyers. MSNBC afternoon host Chris Jansing set up a segment on the issue and asked Alba to explain how the President's move was to "fill a loophole." "And, Chris, we know all too well there are horrible stories about shooters who maybe were denied the ability to purchase a gun at a sporting goods store, but then they were able to go online and buy one because it was an unauthorized retailer," she proclaimed. What she refused to meantion was that firearms purchased online needed to be delivered to licenced firearms dealers, whereupon pick up, the purchaser would have a background check conducted.     Then, even though the gunman who attacked a school in Uvalde, Texas, in 2022 passed a background check to buy his gun, Alba misleadingly made it sound like the new background checks requirement was somehow relevant to this case as she continued: "So this is really the Biden White House trying to curb that, and it's something that specifically became a huge movement and moment for the White House to try to accomplish after the horrific school shooting in Uvalde. So this was something that the President vowed to do." A bit later, Alba misleadingly suggested a background check requirement might have prevented the school shootings at Columbine 25 years ago: And, again, Chris, we're talking about just next week it's going to be the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and those shooters were able to get those guns, again, through this unauthorized process which is known as the "gun show loophole." So it just really is a stark reminder of for how many years this has been such an issue. And the Biden administration says this is a step forward. Alba then made a couple of appearances on Hallie Jackson's show on NBCNOW and made similar claims about the Columbine attackers. About 5:32 p.m. Eastern, she asserted: And when you look at the two shooters in that case, they were able to purchase weapons because of the so-called "gun show loophole," and that means that even if maybe they went to try to get those guns from a sporting goods store or from a retailer, and maybe they would have been stopped there because they would have had to undergo a background check, then they were still able to go and get them from an unauthorized retailer which right now really is a sort of shadow market that exists online. It exists at these sort of flea markets. It exists at these sort of gun shows.     But, in fact, the two Columbine gunmen acquired their guns through circumstances that were already illegal. Both the individuals who supplied them with firearms knew that the gunmen were underage and intentionally bought the firearms for them, which meant it was an illegal straw purchase. Mark Manes was sentenced to six years in prison while Robyn Anderson, who provided two guns through an illegal straw purchase at a gun show, was not charged by prosecutors after she cooperated in the investigation. Transcripts are below. Click "expand" to read: MSNBC's Chris Jansing Reports April 11, 2024 2:05 p.m. Eastern CHRIS JANSING: Now to Washington where the White House just approved the biggest expansion of gun background checks in decades. NBC's White House correspondent Monica Alba is following this for us. Monica, this is intended -- this rule -- to fill a loophole. Tell us about that. MONICA ALBA, NBC WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Chris. This is known as the so-called "gun show loophole." So while some retailers and stores that sell arms do have to do background checks, there is really this market for people who can sell guns out of their home or online who don't have to meet those requirements. So this new rule put in effect by the Biden administration which would start in about a month or so would effectively force anyone who is doing that to conduct a background check. And, Chris, we know all too well there are horrible stories about shooters who maybe were denied the ability to purchase a gun at a sporting goods store, but then they were able to go online and buy one because it was an unauthorized retailer. So this is really the Biden White House trying to curb that, and it's something that specifically became a huge movement and moment for the White House to try to accomplish after the horrific school shooting in Uvalde. So this was something that the President vowed to do. And remember that when they were able to pass the bipartisan gun safety law that went into effect in 2022, this was a part of it. They said it's going to take some time to actually make this rule effective so that we can see now what's going to start to happen in the coming weeks. Now, it's possible this could face some legal challenges, but the administration believes that they can cite the 2022 law as a reason to uphold it. And, again, Chris, we're talking about just next week it's going to be the 25th anniversary of the Columbine shooting, and those shooters were able to get those guns, again, through this unauthorized process which is known as the "gun show loophole." So it just really is a stark reminder of for how many years this has been such an issue. And the Biden administration says this is a step forward. It's something that they did pledge to do, but that they would like to do a lot more when it comes to gun violence prevention. And, of course, that's part of the President's pledge to also ban assault weapons which he has not been able to do so far in this Congress.  (...) NBCNOW's Hallie Jackson NOW April 11, 2024 5:31 p.m. Eastern HALLIE JACKSON: Back here to Washington now, and the Biden administration tonight taking steps to make the biggest expansion in decades to federal background checks for buying guns. The Department of Justice submitting this nearly 500-page set of regulations that makes sellers -- that would make sellers run background checks on a potential buyer's criminal and mental health history. Now, here's why it's such a big deal. It could mean the end of a controversial so-called the "gun show loophole" which basically lets unlicensed private sellers in some states legally sell guns at gun shows, out of their houses, and through online platforms without putting buyers through the background check system. The new rules come from legislation that Congress passed back in June 2022 after the mass school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 people were killed. Just this year -- just this year, rather, we've already seen more than 100 mass shootings -- each year before that, hundreds more. Monica Alba is joining us now. Big, big push here for the Biden administration to sort of regulate the so-called shadow market that's been growing fast. Talk us through it. MONICA ALBA, NBC WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Exactly, Hallie, and it's so tragic when you think about mass shootings. The anniversary next week of Columbine is going to be here -- 25 years since that deadly shooting. And when you look at the two shooters in that case, they were able to purchase weapons because of the so-called "gun show loophole," and that means that even if maybe they went to try to get those guns from a sporting goods store or from a retailer, and maybe they would have been stopped there because they would have had to undergo a background check, then they were still able to go and get them from an unauthorized retailer which right now really is a sort of shadow market that exists online. It exists at these sort of flea markets. It exists at these sort of gun shows. So this new rule which takes effect in about a month from now from the Biden administration would effectively tell these thousands or so who  are selling these kinds of firearms that you do have to be federally licensed, and you do have to conduct background checks on anybody who is attempting to purchase these kinds of weapons. Now, this did come directly from the 2022 bipartisan gun safety law that the President was able to put into action, but he needed the DOJ to actually work on this rule specifically, but it was a major priority, and they feel like this will help. They do feel like there have been cases where specifically people have been denied the purchase of weapons in background checks, so if they can expand that to create a wider net, that that will all be incredibly helpful here.

MSNBC or Al-Jazeera? Mohyeldin Tosses Softballs to Israel-Bashing Rep. Jamaal Bowman

On his eponymous Sunday show, anti-Israel MSNBC host Ayman Mohyeldin spoke with Congressman Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), and gave the "Squad" radical a forum to bash Israel while claiming to support the Jewish state.  Mohyeldin, a former correspondent for Al-Jazeera English whose mother is Palestinian, set up the segment by oddly labeling former Speaker Nancy Pelosi as a "moderate" in spite of her stridently liberal record as he recalled a recent increase in congressional Democrats pushing President Joe Biden to pressure Israel over how it is conducting military operations in Gaza: So, for months, progressive lawmakers have been vocally denouncing Israel's disproportionate retaliation in Gaza, and now today, six months into the war, that view is actually held by a majority of Americans. According to a Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza. That is the majority. And, as we mentioned before the break, moderate Democrats including Nancy Pelosi who are, you know, strong supporters of Israel, have now joined that chorus. He added: "In a letter, they have asked President Biden to suspend weapons transfers to Israel until a full independent investigation into the World Central Kitchen convoy attack is complete." After Congressman Bowman talked up the likelihood of more Democrats joining together to be more critical of Israel, Mohyeldin followed up by sympathetically asking about AIPAC targeting his guest and other anti-Israel Democrats in their primaries: The American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- or AIPAC as we know -- expected to spend $100 million on trying to oust Democrats like yourself in their primaries before they even get to the general election. Another group -- the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC -- just endorsed George Latimer, the AIPAC-endorsed candidate who's running against you in New York's primary. What do you make of this? What do you say to these groups who are coming after you on this issue? Have you ever experienced anything like this in your short term in politics so far? He then followed up: Why though? Why is this happening? And, again, I don't know of another part of our politics or a policy issue -- it doesn't happen -- the gun lobby does not do this with your opponent. They don't primary you if you're not taking it -- the climate lobby doesn't do this. The labor lobby doesn't do this. So why is this happening? The far-left Democrat then made incendiary claims about Israel, calling it an "apartheid state" and referring to the founding of Israel that displaced Arabs as the "Nakba" (which means "disaster" in Arabic). Bowman: They don't want any criticism of Israel. Listen, Israel is an ally. We want them to remain an ally. But just like your brother or your cousin or your friend, when they're doing the wrong thing, you have to tell them they're doing the wrong thing and hold them accountable so they can improve. Israel has been doing the wrong thing not just as it relates to this collective punishment in Gaza and the starvation that's happening right now in Gaza, but prior to that, labeled an apartheid state, occupation, a blockade, the Nakba which nobody ever wants to talk about. Mohyeldin supportively asked that "one of the critiques is like you're too focused on foreign policy -- you're not focused enough on your district -- and that's what they're trying to do with Rashida Tlaib in Michigan with other progressives. Does that hold any water?" The New York Democrat answered: My district doesn't want bombs and weapons and billions to be sent to Israel to kill babies. My district wants that money sent to our district so people can afford housing and child care and utilities and have better paying jobs and can afford food and take a vacation. We want peace, and we want investments in the American economy and the American people -- particularly those black, brown, marginalized and left behind. Transcript follows: MSNBC's Ayman April 7, 2024 7:17 p.m. Eastern AYMAN MOHYELDIN: So, for months, progressive lawmakers have been vocally denouncing Israel's disproportionate retaliation in Gaza, and now today, six months into the war, that view is actually held by a majority of Americans. According to a Gallup poll, 55 percent of Americans disapprove of Israel's military actions in Gaza. That is the majority. And, as we mentioned before the break, moderate Democrats including Nancy Pelosi who are, you know, strong supporters of Israel, have now joined that chorus. In a letter, they have asked President Biden to suspend weapons transfers to Israel until a full independent investigation into the World Central Kitchen convoy attack is complete. New York Democratic Congressman Jamaal Bowman is one of those who signed that letter. He joins me now. Let me start off with -- I don't know if you had a chance to see our previous segment, but one of the critiques was: It's only 37 lawmakers so far. You're one of those lawmakers. Give us a -- give us a response to what you say of that critique. CONGRESSMAN JAMAAL BOWMAN (D-NY): Yeah, I mean, it's 37 lawmakers responding to the American people. The majority of the American people demand a permanent ceasefire. We see what's going on right in front of our eyes. We see hundreds of thousands of people and children starving to death in Gaza. So the American people are with us. We're just leading the way and responding to what the people in our own districts are saying. And so, yeah, I mean, you say it's 37 lawmakers now. It was only a few at the very beginning calling for a permanent ceasefire, and that number has grown exponentially. So you're going to see this number grow. I think you're going to see this number grow pretty rapidly. MOHYELDIN: Are you seeing any initial response or any backdoor channels of communication with the White House? How do these things work? You've sent the letter -- you've signed onto the letter. Do they start signaling to you, "Hey, we welcome this, and you're helping us, giving us more space so that we can -- the President can come out there now and start being critical of Israel on this issue"? (BOWMAN) Let me ask you about the Wisconsin vote again. We were talking about this in the previous segment. What do you make of the fact that the domestic politics in this country -- and you're talking about democracy, the representation of the American people. You had about 48,000 unrestricted voters in Wisconsin. The President won that state by 20,000 votes. Is that a cause of concern for the reelection of President Joe Biden? (BOWMAN) Let me ask you about what you're going through in terms of your own personal campaign. I want to kind of make sure I just got the number. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- or AIPAC as we know -- expected to spend $100 million on trying to oust Democrats like yourself in their primaries before they even get to the general election. Another group -- the Democratic Majority for Israel PAC -- just endorsed George Latimer, the AIPAC-endorsed candidate who's running against you in New York's primary. What do you make of this? What do you say to these groups who are coming after you on this issue? Have you ever experienced anything like this in your short term in politics so far? (BOWMAN) Why though? Why is this happening? And, again, I don't know of another part of our politics or a policy issue -- it doesn't happen -- the gun lobby does not do this with your opponent. They don't primary you if you're not taking it -- the climate lobby doesn't do this. The labor lobby doesn't do this. So why is this happening? BOWMAN: They don't want any criticism of Israel. Listen, Israel is an ally. We want them to remain an ally. But just like your brother or your cousin or your friend, when they're doing the wrong thing, you have to tell them they're doing the wrong thing and hold them accountable so they can improve. Israel has been doing the wrong thing not just as it relates to this collective punishment in Gaza and the starvation that's happening right now in Gaza, but prior to that, labeled an apartheid state, occupation, a blockade, the Nakba which nobody ever wants to talk about. So, because people like me are in Congress actually speaking the truth to hold Israel accountable so they can do better for themselves and for a free Palestine, now, AIPAC wants to come after us. They don't want any criticism of Israel which is absurd and unacceptable and is not going to help us maintain a good relationship or maintain lives in Israel or Palestine. MOHYELDIN: One of their -- and we're almost out of time -- but one of the critiques is like you're too focused on foreign policy -- you're not focused enough on your district -- and that's what they're trying to do with Rashida Tlaib in Michigan with other progressives. Does that hold any water? BOWMAN: Yeah, every accusation is a confession. My district doesn't want bombs and weapons and billions to be sent to Israel to kill babies. My district wants that money sent to our district so people can afford housing and child care and utilities and have better paying jobs and can afford food and take a vacation. We want peace, and we want investments in the American economy and the American people -- particularly those black, brown, marginalized and left behind. That's what my district wants. MOHYELDIN: Congressman Jamaal Bowman, always a pleasure.

CNN's Smerconish Accuses GOP of 'Demonizing All Immigrants'

On his eponymous Saturday morning show, CNN host Michael Smerconish blurred the distinction between legal and illegal immigrants as he asserted that conservatives will "demonize all immigrants" in response to a new RNC website that documents crimes committed by illegal aliens. After recalling that President Donald Trump recently coined the slogan "Stop Biden's Border Bloodbath" as part of his presidential campaign, Smerconish fretted about the RNC starting a website called "Bidenbloodbath.com." And, although the site lists examples of crimes by illegal aliens in the U.S., the CNN host described them simply as "migrants," and recalled studies finding that "immigrants" generally have a lower crime rate than American citizens. The CNN host related: And the RNC launched a new website called Bidenbloodbath.com. Go to that site, and you're going to read a diatribe against President Biden, claiming that, quote, "Lives of everyday Americans have been shattered as a direct result of Biden's open border policies." And then there are tabs for 13 states which seek to track crimes committed by migrants. This despite the fact that researchers at Stanford found that migrants coming into the United States are actually 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated when compared to white American citizens. He then added: The study debunks any claims that immigration leads to more crime and concludes that, quote, "Recent waves of immigrants are more likely to be employed, married with children, and in good health. Far from the rapists and drug dealers that anti-immigrant politicians claim them to be, immigrants today are doing relatively well and have largely been shielded from the social and economic forces that have affected low-educated U.S.-born men." But, in fact, Republicans and mainstream conservatives highlight specific crimes committed by illegal aliens, not legal immigrants. The process of legal immigration screens out non-citizens who already have criminal backgrounds whereas those who cross the border illegally, even if they are apprehended by Border Patrol, do not receive background checks that would include crimes committed in their home countries. Those who cross the border illegally are therefore a greater security risk than those who enter the country through the proper channels. Additionally, if one reads the study by Stanford, it is clear that the research does not specifically study illegal aliens but instead immigrants generally when it concludes that "immigrants" have a lower crime rate than American citizens. But, as previously documented by NewsBusters, a study by the libertarian CATO Institute -- which holds very liberal views on immigration -- admitted that illegal aliens have a higher rate of committing crimes than do legal immigrants, thus confirming that a disproportionate percentage of immigrant crime is committed by those who are illegal. The CNN host soon fretted that, because of the "sheer volume of the people coming into the United States," there will inevitably be more crimes committed by some of them which Republicans will then be able to exploit: "But the sheer volume of the people coming into the United States almost guarantees that that bloodbath website that the RNC has assembled, it's going to continue to have content. And some of those encounters are going to be high-profile." After listing several examples of illegal immigrants who have recently committed murders, Smerconish concluded: "Yet, because of the sheer volume of those crossing the border, such examples will inevitably keep cropping up, and they'll be weaponized to, however unfairly, demonize all migrants because politically it is very potent." The CNN host also gave the impression that there are only a small number of murders committed by illegals each year even though numbers previously released by both the Barack Obama administration and Trump administration suggested that around 1,000 to 2,000 illegals are deported each year after committing homicides. In 2017, 2018, 2019, and 2020, the Trump administration deported about 1,500 non-citizens each year who had been convicted of homicides, plus several hundred more who had been charged. Transcript follows: CNN's Smerconish April 6, 2024 9:41 a.m. Eastern MICHAEL SMERCONISH: As the campaign season hits stride, each side has a strong get-out-the-vote issue -- the border and abortion. First, on the border, Donald Trump has turned his offhand bloodbath remark into a campaign slogan. You'll recall Trump caused conniptions back on March 16 when he used the word "bloodbath" at a rally near Dayton, Ohio. I said at the time that context mattered. He used the word after a rant about trade, the Chinese, and the auto industry, and said that there would be a bloodbath if he were not elected. Now, given the events of January 16 (sic), many ignored the context, and they feared that it was yet another call for civil unrest. When he first said "bloodbath" in Ohio, it seemed unscripted, it seemed extemporaneous, but now he's owning it and in a different scenario. Trump was in the battleground state of Michigan this week, appearing in an event at Grand Rapids that was called, "Stop Biden's Border Bloodbath." And the RNC launched a new website called Bidenbloodbath.com. Go to that site, and you're going to read a diatribe against President Biden, claiming that, quote, "Lives of everyday Americans have been shattered as a direct result of Biden's open border policies." And then there are tabs for 13 states which seek to track crimes committed by migrants. This despite the fact that researchers at Stanford found that migrants coming into the Untied States are actually 30 percent less likely to be incarcerated when compared to white American citizens. The study debunks any claims that immigration leads to more crime and concludes that, quote, "Recent waves of immigrants are more likely to be employed, married with children, and in good health. Far from the rapists and drug dealers that anti-immigrant politicians claim them to be, immigrants today are doing relatively well and have largely been shielded from the social and economic forces that have affected low-educated U.S.-born men." But, politically speaking, volume is on Trump's side. Think about it. The U.S. Border Patrol had nearly 250,000 encounters with migrants coming into the United States from Mexico in December of 2023. That's according to government statistics. "Encounters" means both apprehensions and expulsions. And for comparison the population of Cincinnati is 300,000 people. It was the highest monthly total on record, easily eclipsing the previous peak of about 224,000 encounters in May of 2022. I think the vast majority of migrants coming to the United States are hardworking people seeking a better life for themselves and their families and/or asylum. I don't think that Mexico is sending us their rapists. Obviously, I need to underscore this: We need to tighten our border -- it's porous. But the sheer volume of the people coming into the United States almost guarantees that that bloodbath website that the RNC has assembled, it's going to continue to have content. And some of those encounters are going to be high-profile. I hope that I'm wrong, but human factors say otherwise. For example, 25-year-old Ruby Garcia, killed by an undocumented immigrant she was romantically involved with. Garcia's body found on the side of a highway in Grand Rapids, Michigan, last month. The 25-year-old suspect, later arrested, charged with murder. Or the case of Laken Riley -- the 22-year-old nursing student from Georgia who was killed on a college campus by someone who entered the country illegally. The suspect had been arrested back in 2022 but later released according to ICE. And in Maryland a toddler killed during a shootout between two groups over a drug dispute. One of the suspects charged in connection to the boy's killing was also here illegally and arrested last year for theft charges. Finally, an undocumented migrant acquitted -- you'll remember this case -- for the 2015 death of Kate Steinle in San Francisco -- will be deported to Mexico again. The high-profile case drew national attention after the public learned the suspect had been deported back to Mexico five times in the past. Yet, because of the sheer volume of those crossing the border, such examples will inevitably keep cropping up, and they'll be weaponized to, however unfairly, demonize all migrants because politically it is very potent.