Transcript: Hillary Clinton's full remarks in Reno, Nevada...This is someone who retweets white supremacists online, like the user who goes by the name “white-genocide-TM.” Trump took this fringe bigot with a few dozen followers and spread his message to 11 million people.
His campaign famously posted an anti-Semitic image – a Star of David imposed over a sea of dollar bills – that first appeared on a white supremacist website.
The Trump campaign also selected a prominent white nationalist leader as a delegate in California. They only dropped him under pressure.
When asked in a nationally televised interview whether he would disavow the support of David Duke, a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan, Trump wouldn’t do it. Only later, again under mounting pressure, did he backtrack.
And when Trump was asked about anti-Semitic slurs and death threats coming from his supporters, he refused to condemn them.
Through it all, he has continued pushing discredited conspiracy theories with racist undertones.
Trump said thousands of American Muslims in New Jersey cheered the 9/11 attacks. They didn’t.
He suggested that Ted Cruz’s father was involved in the Kennedy assassination. Perhaps in Trump’s mind, because he was a Cuban immigrant, he must have had something to do with it. Of course there’s absolutely no evidence of that.
Just recently, Trump claimed President Obama founded ISIS. And then he repeated that nonsense over and over.
His latest paranoid fever dream is about my health. All I can say is, Donald, dream on.
This is what happens when you treat the National Enquirer like Gospel.
It’s what happens when you listen to the radio host Alex Jones, who claims that 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings were inside jobs. He said the victims of the Sandy Hook massacre were child actors and no one was actually killed there.
Trump didn’t challenge those lies. He went on Jones’ show and said: “Your reputation is amazing. I will not let you down.”
This man wants to be President of the United States.
....He’d abolish the bedrock constitutional principle that says if you’re born in the United States, you’re an American citizen. He says that children
born in America to undocumented parents are, quote, “anchor babies” and should be deported.
Millions of them.And he’d ban Muslims around the world – 1.5 billion men, women, and children –from entering our country just because of their religion.
Think about that for a minute. How would it actually work? People landing in U.S. airports would line up to get their passports stamped, just like they do now.
But in Trump’s America, when they step up to the counter, the immigration officer would ask every single person, “What is your religion?”
And then what?
What if someone says, “I’m a Christian,” but the agent doesn’t believe them.
Do they have to prove it? How would they do that?
Ever since the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, America has distinguished itself as a haven for people fleeing religious persecution.Under Donald Trump, America would distinguish itself as the only country in the world to impose a religious test at the border.
Come to think of it, there actually may be one place that does that. It’s the so-called Islamic State. The territory ISIS controls. It would be a cruel irony if America followed its lead.
Don’t worry, some will say, as President, Trump will be surrounded by smart advisors who will rein in his worst impulses.
So when a tweet gets under his skin and he wants to retaliate with a cruise missile, maybe cooler heads will be there to convince him not to.
Maybe.
But look at who he’s put in charge of his campaign.
Trump likes to say he only hires the “best people.” But he’s had to fire so many campaign managers it’s like an episode of the Apprentice.
The latest shake-up was designed to – quote – “Let Trump be Trump.” To do that, he hired Stephen Bannon, the head of a right-wing website called Breitbart.com, as campaign CEO.
To give you a flavor of his work, here are a few headlines they’ve published:
“Birth Control Makes Women Unattractive and Crazy.”
“Would You Rather Your Child Had Feminism or Cancer?”
“Gabby Giffords: The Gun Control Movement’s Human Shield”
“Hoist It High And Proud: The Confederate Flag Proclaims A Glorious Heritage.”
That one came shortly after the Charleston massacre, when Democrats and Republicans alike were doing everything they could to heal racial divides. Breitbart tried to enflame them further.
Just imagine – Donald Trump reading that and thinking: “this is what I need more of in my campaign.”
Bannon has nasty things to say about pretty much everyone.
This spring, he railed against Paul Ryan for, quote “rubbing his social-justice Catholicism in my nose every second.”
No wonder he’s gone to work for Trump – the only Presidential candidate ever to get into a public feud with the Pope.
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Breitbart embraces “ideas on the extremist fringe of the conservative right. Racist ideas.
Race-baiting ideas. Anti-Muslim and anti-Immigrant ideas –– all key tenets making up an emerging racist ideology known as the ‘Alt-Right.’”
Alt-Right is short for “Alternative Right.”
The Wall Street Journal describes it as a loosely organized movement, mostly online, that “rejects mainstream conservatism, promotes
nationalism and views immigration and multiculturalism as threats to white identity.”
The de facto merger between Breitbart and the Trump Campaign represents a landmark achievement for the “Alt-Right.” A fringe element has effectively taken over the Republican Party.
This is part of a broader story -- the rising tide of hardline, right-wing nationalism around the world.
Just yesterday, one of Britain’s most prominent right-wing leaders, Nigel Farage, who stoked anti-immigrant sentiments to win the referendum on leaving the European Union, campaigned with Donald Trump in Mississippi.
Farage has called for a ban on the children of legal immigrants from public schools and health services, has said women are quote “worth less” than men, and supports scrapping laws that prevent employers from discriminating based on race -- that’s who Trump wants by his side.
The godfather of this global brand of extreme nationalism is Russian President Vladimir Putin.In fact, Farage has appeared regularly on Russian propaganda programs.
Now he’s standing on the same stage as the Republican nominee.
Trump himself heaps praise on Putin and embrace pro-Russian policies.
He talks casually of abandoning our NATO allies, recognizing Russia’s annexation of Crimea, and of giving the Kremlin a free hand in Eastern
Europe more generally.
American presidents from Truman to Reagan have rejected the kind of approach Trump is taking on Russia.
We should, too.
All of this adds up to something we’ve never seen before.
Of course there’s always been a paranoid fringe in our politics, steeped in racial resentment. But it’s never had the nominee of a major party stoking it, encouraging it, and giving it a national megaphone. Until now.
On David Duke’s radio show the other day, the mood was jubilant.
“We appear to have taken over the Republican Party,” one white supremacist said.
Duke laughed. There’s still more work to do, he said.
No one should have any illusions about what’s really going on here. The names may have changed… Racists now call themselves “racialists.” White supremacists now call themselves “white nationalists.” The paranoid fringe now calls itself “alt-right.” But the hate burns just as bright.
And now Trump is trying to rebrand himself as well. Don’t be fooled.