All three co-hosts of MSNBC's "The Weekend," along with former Donald Trump White House aide Sarah Matthews, pounced on Donald Trump for telling a raucous NRA crowd on Saturday that President Joe Biden deserves to be executed.
During his speech before the gun owners in Texas, the former president told the crowd that "Manchurian candidate" Biden has accepted money from Russia, China and Ukraine before claiming, "If that were a Republican, he would have been given the electric chair, they would have brought back the death penalty."
That led "The Weekend" co-host Alicia Menendez to begin the segment with, "A reminder, in case you needed one, a political candidate alluding to the execution of a sitting president in front of the most prominent organization of gun owners — definitely not normal."
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Co-host Michael Steele, the former chair of the RNC, ruefully contributed, "Look, okay, so Trump is a liar, well established, we know that. The projection around Biden taking money from Russia and all these places, we know that. But, when you are standing in front of a group like the NRA, when you are standing in front of a group that has very, very strong views about this administration, the Biden administration and Donald Trump for that matter, what is the signaling, from inside the bubble a little bit with Trump, what is the signaling that is going on there? Is it as blatant as making a comment about executing a president or is it something more or something less, is it just Trump standing there running his mouth?"
'I think that Donald Trump knows this audience that would be at a convention for the NRA are people that are a part of his base. And so he's going to say things like this where it is going to rile them up and get them excited," Matthews replied. "I think he knows that, in his mind, he thinks it is a joke where he's joking about 'Oh, he needs the electric chair,' but you shouldn't be talking about that with anyone in general, but especially not the sitting president."
"And I think he does it because he wants to get a reaction out of them and thinks it'll be entertaining. But I think he doesn't care about how his rhetoric has gotten increasingly erratic and he has this culture of political violence," she added. "It is concerning when we are looking at it, but it follows this pattern we have seen from the 2024 campaign thus far."
She later added, "I think it is sad because we have normalized this rhetoric with Trump. Some Americans don't even think twice when he makes these comments because they are so conditioned and used to him talking like this. But this is not normal, we should not have the Republican candidate for president making jokes about executing the current sitting U.S. president."
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MSNBC 05 19 2024 08 01 11 youtu.be
