Rachel Maddow tore into Donald Trump on Thursday for saying it was “beautiful” to watch protesters in Minneapolis get tear-gassed by law enforcement officers during demonstrations following George Floyd’s murder.
At a roundtable in Dallas, the president called the aggressive police tactics “a beautiful scene” and said it was like watching a “knife cutting butter.”
In response to Trump’s disturbing commentary, Maddow said, “The sickness that you feel in hearing that remark from the president and reading that quote from the president – the president loves that that turns your stomach.”
“He loves how sickening this is to a big portion of the country,” she added.
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Video:
Rachel Maddow says it was ‘sickening’ to watch Trump applaud the tear-gassing of peaceful protesters in Minneapolis. #ctl #p2 #maddow pic.twitter.com/vR1e7lVwOD
— PoliticusUSA (@politicususa) June 12, 2020
Maddow said:
The president of our country said out loud that seeing tear gas used against protesters these past couple of weeks was to him, quote, a beautiful scene. That was his phrase, a beautiful scene. He said seeing tear gas used against protesters was beautiful. He said it was like a knife cutting butter. You know, I feel like if we have learned one thing over these past three plus years, we have learned that the sickness that you feel in hearing that remark from the president and reading that quote from the president – the president loves that that turns your stomach. The whole point of him saying stuff like that, of his campaign now making ads out of the clubbing and beating of protesters, the whole point of it is because he knows it makes you sick. He lives for your outrage. He lives for our outrage. It’s his one neat trick for political gain and dominating the media. Outrage, distract, polarize, divide, radicalize, demoralize, rinse, repeat. What am I not supposed to say? Here’s me saying it ten times. Go crazy. He loves how sickening this is to a big portion of the country.
Trump is an internet troll, not a president
There are two reasons Donald Trump behaves the way that he does on a daily basis.
First, as Rachel Maddow pointed out, it’s because he truly enjoys the shock and disgust that a majority of the American feel when he says or does something outrageous.
As Maddow said, “He lives for our outrage.”
Second, Trump clearly aspires to be an authoritarian ruler like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un, two men he has repeatedly praised. Watching peaceful demonstrators get gassed in the streets makes him feel like he’s closer to having what they have.
In November, the American people will have the opportunity to decide whether this experiment of electing an internet troll as president should continue for another four years.
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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.
