Ari Melber reminded America on Wednesday that Donald Trump couldn’t care less about criminal justice reform, despite today’s presidential pardon of Alice Marie Johnson.
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The MSNBC host said the media shouldn’t pretend that Trump cares – or has a clue – about the broken justice system. Instead, the pardon is clearly motivated by his constant need for attention and celebrity.
Video:
Melber tore Trump to shreds for his photo-op pardon:
Let’s not pretend this was this president’s goal. We live during a presidency that was obtained by a man obsessed with attention. Trump occupies the job now with the most built-in attention in the world. I mean, if you took Taylor Swift, Kanye West, Drak, Pusha T, had them all meet for dinner in Time Square, there would still be fewer video cameras there than every time the President of the United States walks down the street. But for him apparently, that’s not enough. So this commutation is in the news tonight because Trump still wanted more attention, more celebrity. Why did Trump suddenly discover criminal justice? You can capture this whole strange exchange with a few lines from Travis Scott. Why’d you do it? Why’d you switch up? Was it for the image or for the pictures? We know it was for the pictures.
Some are pointing at Trump’s pardon as an example of the president’s commitment to criminal justice reform. He released an elderly African American woman who would have remained in prison for the rest of her life, after all.
But Donald Trump has been missing in action on this issue since taking office. If anything, his rhetoric and policy proposals have done in the opposite direction, even as members of both parties have agreed something needs to be done to address the problem.
This year, Trump suggested that drug dealers should be given the death penalty, they haven’t committed a capital offense.
Ultimately, it’s clear what this new pardon is all about. Trump doesn’t care about criminal justice reform. He likely doesn’t know the first thing about it.
Instead, he seized on this issue to boost his celebrity status.
Sean Colarossi currently resides in Cleveland, Ohio. He earned his Bachelor of Arts degree in Journalism from the University of Massachusetts Amherst and was an organizing fellow for both of President Obama’s presidential campaigns. He also worked with Planned Parenthood as an Affordable Care Act Outreach Organizer in 2014, helping northeast Ohio residents obtain health insurance coverage.
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