Joe Scarborough Compares White Nationalism To ISIS: The Threat Of Our Time
MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough compared white nationalism to ISIS on Tuesday’s Morning Joe. Scarborough said the United States must take the threat of domestic terrorism just as seriously as it treats radical Islamic terrorism and nobody should delay taking action.
Guest Jim VandeHei was discussing the domestic terror threat with Scarborough when the Morning Joe host made the comparison.
“Jim, what you’re describing — yeah, what you’re describing is, of course, what ISIS was when it was expanding in 2013/2014 and the United States government ignored it, called it a regional threat. And it wasn’t until the government focused on stamping out ISIS that they were finally able to do that starting, really, in earnest in 2015, 2016. So a lot of Americans asking why can’t we do the same thing now with this sort of hatred?”
VandeHei said there were difficulties treating domestic terrorism the same way as ISIS.
“You can and you can’t,” VandeHei said. “When you’re dealing with ISIS, when you’re dealing with the foreign threat because of the laws post 9/11, government has a lot more flexibility. The FBI has a lot more tools in its arsenal to be able to go after foreign threats as opposed to domestic threats.”
VandeHei went on to discuss how President Donald Trump is exploiting hateful rhetoric. Scarborough agreed.
“Well, there is a — there is, though, a direct line that you can attach the hateful speeches and the rallies and the language that are used in those rallies,” Scarborough said.
“You can draw a straight line to much of the language in these manifestos. And when you have a manifesto coming out of El Paso where the killer is specifically saying that there are too many Hispanics. There’s a Hispanic invasion of Texas, and that if it doesn’t stop that Democrats are going to take control of Texas and will change the electoral map forever, so Democrats will continue winning and Republicans will lose, suddenly it becomes not only very political but very specific.”
“[I]t’s interesting that, you know, this white nationalism and hate crime – The numbers have exploded since Donald Trump got involved in American Politics,” Scarborough said. “The Washington Post even reported yesterday that hate crimes in areas where Donald Trump gave rallies in 2016 have gone up over 200%.”
“And yet, the federal government is still not focusing on stamping out hate crimes. A lot of people, of course, could look back and say, well, you know, back during the Obama administration there was a real frustration that the government would not even mention the words ‘Islamic radical extremism’ and were slow to start going after ISIS. The President dismissing it as a regional threat.”
“Now, here we are. That was the threat then. This is now the threat of our time. Specifically since Donald Trump came into the White House.”
Watch the video above, via MSNBC.
