Nicolle Wallace Says GOP Has Crashed And Entered “Black Box Phase” Under Trump
Thursday may have been the most pivotal day in this entire election season. Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton carefully and factually laid out the case that Donald Trump is tied to the Alt-Right and has courted the support of racists. Meanwhile, Trump did an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper and repeatedly called Clinton a bigot while providing no proof of her bigotry, doubling down on comments from earlier in the week.
During a segment on MSNBC’s Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski and panelist Nicolle Wallace were just dumbstruck over the CNN interview. According to Mika, it was apparent that the Republican standard-bearer had no idea what his words mean.
“Donald Trump, you have no idea what your words mean. You have no idea. You have no idea what your words mean. And I can’t pretend and sort of try and cover this fairly and put it in the objectivity. You have no idea what your words mean and what you’re doing to this country.”
Wallace expanded on Brzezinski’s point, noting that Republican presidents and candidates in the past realized where there was a line and didn’t cross it. She noted that George W. Bush went to a mosque a week after 9/11 and pointedly stated that we are all Americans, something Clinton pointed out in her speech. The former Republican strategist also remarked on John McCain’s famous 2008 rebuking of a woman who claimed Barack Obama was “an Arab,” even though it was in the heat of an election he was losing.
After hoisting McCain up on a pedestal for his actions — she did work for the man, after all — she then lamented about what Trump has done to the GOP.
“So it’s not just what he’s doing. It’s what he’s done to the Republican Party, and I think we’ve sort of entered this black box phase, where we’ve crashed.”
That’s a pretty remarkable statement. We’ve seen mainstream Republicans try to come to terms with the Trump candidacy over the past few months. They’ve talked themselves into supporting him, only to see him do this kind of shit time and time again. Now he’s got Breitbart running his campaign and he’s calling his opponent a bigot, all while delivering an incoherent message on the trail because the campaign’s trying to figure out a way to shift and soften his image.
This is likely why Republicans that aren’t already attached to the Trump campaign have been deadly silent since Hillary’s Reno speech. No defense of their nominee, who was essentially called a racist courting votes from white supremacists by the Democratic candidate. None. Seems like they’re just willing to let him and the party crash and burn, and they’ll retrieve the black box at the end.
Below is video of the segment, courtesy of MSNBC:
