RUSH TRANSCRIPT:
STELTER: “I have to be honest, I want to take a minute and talk you through this before I bring in the panel. These smears, these lies, this misinformation that comes mostly on the right from pro-Trump websites, Facebook pages, Twitter accounts, supported by television hosts, radio hosts. They are softening the ground for straight-up racism out of the president’s Twitter account. That’s what we are seeing today. One of the president’s most recent Tweets straight-up racist talking about Progressive congresswomen. He says so interesting to see Progressive Democratic congresswomen who originally came from countries whose countries are a catastrophe. ‘Here’s the key part. Why don’t they go back and help fix the totally broken and crime infested places from which they came.’ Now, he’s probably talking about Ilhan Omar, who was born in Somalia, fled to Kenya and came to the United States when she was 12 years old. Other Democratic congresswomen who she is associated with, friendly with all of whom were born in the United States. But the president is talking about Democratic congresswomen who need to go back to where they’re from. It’s 2019. We’re two and a half years into the Trump presidency and his racism is becoming more obvious, more frightening. There are millions of Americans who knows what he means when he says go back to where you came from. They have heard those words in the school yard, behind their backs at work. That kind of racism that Americans have been fighting against for decades is coming from the president’s Twitter feed. There’s no bigger story in the country right now. And I want to relate this to the media by pointing out the ground has been softened by the president by this collection of pro-Trump bloggers, radio hosts, television stars who somehow think it’s acceptable to attack fellow Americans like this.”