Watch: Rachel Maddow Attacked By GOP On War On Women, Strikes Back, Wins
Rachel Maddow, the top MSNBC anchor, appeared on “Meet The Press” on Sunday, and was immediately attacked by Republican guests. Maddow, whose book, Drift, is a number one best-seller, eloquently held her ground despite not even being allowed to speak by Alex Castellanos, a GOP political operative and CNN pundit. The topic: pay inequality; women are paid less than men. Castellanos actually said — while interrupting Madddow — “Men go into professions like engineering, science and math that earn more. Women want more flexibility.”
“A new study released in April by the Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that women earn 77 cents to every dollar earned by men. It’s one of several studies showing women are paid less than men for doing the same work over the same number of hours. The exchange comes just as Democrats and President Obama are upping their attacks on Republicans over issues affecting women, from equal pay to mandatory ultrasound laws,” Talking Points Memo reported:
Maddow rejoined that the disparity is the result of “structural discrimination that women really do face that Republicans don’t believe is happening.†She needled Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), a Romney surrogate who was also on the panel, for her vote against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act that makes it easier for women to sue for gender-based pay discrimination.
The tussle took a more personal turn when Castellanos told Maddow, “I love how passionate you are. I wish you are as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it. I really do.â€
“That’s really condescending,†Maddow replied. “I mean this is a stylistic issue. My passion on this issue is actually me making a factual argument.â€
This is what the GOP does. When it can’t win, it interjects doubt, and allows some weak-minded voters to cling to their old beliefs that shore up their own ignorance, which Republican strategists like Castellanos use.
“Beware people who begin the arguments with the word ‘actually’ because, more often than not, they’re about to lay down a thick layer of nasally, affected condescension,” Doug Barry at Jezebel writes.
At least, that’s what happens in this clip from a Meet the Pressconfrontation between fact-marshalling Rachel Maddow and obfuscating GOP strategist Alex Castellanos, who incorrectly believed he could smarm and squirm his way past Maddow in arguing that, actually, women don’t make only 77 cents on the dollar compared to what men make. I say “confrontation” rather than “debate” because Castellanos is full of shit and Maddow says as much by swiveling her head so sharply when he contradicts her litany of persistent inequalities that it seems she’s in danger of losing it. Her head, I mean, not the confrontation, for which Castellanos, as plodding as Snuffleupagus with his words, was ill-prepared.
Frankly, Castellanos was extremely arrogant and an excellent example of how Republicans view and treat women. They don’t like Rachel Maddow because she represents everything they are against: intelligence and education (Maddow is a Rhodes Scholar and has a PhD from Oxford), independent women and women in general, and homosexuality.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/32545640
Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy
Transcript via MSNBC:
DAVID GREGORY:
How, Rachel, should this conversation actually be framed? I made the comment when I’ve done this topic before. In a lot of ways, men bringing up this question it’s almost a condescending question. “Well, what is it that women want?”
RACHEL MADDOW:
Right.
DAVID GREGORY:
So what is the right way to be framing this conversation and this debate, which is a very serious debate, because we’re talking about the real deciders in the race.
RACHEL MADDOW:
Policy. It should be about policy. And all of our best debates are always about policy. And it should be about policy that affects women specifically. The Romney campaign wants to talk about women and the economy. Women in this country still make 77 cents on the dollar for what men make. So if–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Not exactly.
RACHEL MADDOW:
Women don’t make less than men?
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Actually, if you start looking at the numbers, Rachel, there are lots of reasons for that.
RACHEL MADDOW:
Wait, wait. No.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Well, first of all, we–
RACHEL MADDOW:
Don’t tell me what the reasons are. Do women make less than men for the (UNINTEL PHRASE)?
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Actually–
FEMALE VOICE:
Not (UNINTEL).
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
–because.
RACHEL MADDOW:
No? (LAUGH) Okay. No.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Well, for example–
(OVERTALK)
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
–men work an average of 44 hours a week. Women work 41 hours a week. Men go into professions like engineering, science and math that earn more. Women want more flexibility–
(OVERTALK)
RACHEL MADDOW:
Listen, this is not a math is hard type of conversation.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
No, no. Yes, it is, actually.
RACHEL MADDOW:
No, it isn’t.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
We’re having to look–
RACHEL MADDOW:
No, listen–
DAVID GREGORY:
All right, let Rachel–
(OVERTALK)
DAVID GREGORY:
–by the way (UNINTEL).
RACHEL MADDOW:
Right now women are making 77 cents–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
And litigated–
RACHEL MADDOW:
–on the dollar for what men are making, so–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Well, that’s not true.
RACHEL MADDOW:
–so–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
If so every–
DAVID GREGORY:
All right, let Rachel make her point.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
–greedy businessman in America would hire only women, save 25% and be hugely profitable.
RACHEL MADDOW:
I feel like this is actually–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
That’s it.
RACHEL MADDOW:
–and it’s weird that you’re interrupting me and not letting me make my point, because we get along so well. So let me make my point.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
I will.
RACHEL MADDOW:
But it is important, I think, the interruption is important, I think, because now we know, at least from both of your perspectives, that women are not faring worse than men in the economy. That women aren’t getting paid less for equal work. I think that’s a serious difference in factual understanding of the world.
But given that some of us believe that women are getting paid less than men for doing the same work, there is something called the Fair Pay Act. There was a court ruling that said the statute of limitations, if you’re getting paid less than a men, if you’re subject to discrimination, starts before you know that discrimination is happening, effectively cutting off your recourse to the courts. You didn’t know you were being discriminated against. You can’t go.
The first law passed by this administration is the Fair Pay Act. To remedy that court ruling. The Mitt Romney campaign put you out as a surrogate to shore up people’s feelings about this issue after they could not say whether or not Mitt Romney would have signed that bill. You’re supposed to make us feel better about it. You voted against the Fair Pay Act. It’s not about–
(OVERTALK)
RACHEL MADDOW:
–whether or not you have a female surrogate. It’s about policy and whether or not you want to fix some of the structural discrimination that women really do face that Republicans don’t believe is happening.
DAVID GREGORY:
It’s policy is the argument.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
It’s policy. And I love how passionate you are. I wish you are as right about what you’re saying as you are passionate about it. I really do.
RACHEL MADDOW:
That’s really condescending.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
For example– no.
RACHEL MADDOW:
I mean this is a stylistic issue.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
I’ll tell you what–
RACHEL MADDOW:
My passion on this issue–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Here’s a fact–
RACHEL MADDOW:
–is actually me making a factual argument–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
Can I share one–
RACHEL MADDOW:
–on it, Alex.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
May I share one fact with us?
RACHEL MADDOW:
Please share.
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
When you look at, for example, single women working in America today between the ages of, I think, 40 and 64, who makes more? Men or women, on average? Men make $40,000 a year. Women make $47,000. When you take out the marriage factor, look at some economics. My point here is that we’re manufacturing a political crisis to get away from what this election really wants to be about.
DAVID GREGORY:
All right. Well, let me bring it back–
ALEX CASTELLANOS:
And that’s the Obama strategy in this election.
DAVID GREGORY:
All right, but–
RACHEL MADDOW:
No–
Enjoy this piece?
… then let us make a small request. The New Civil Rights Movement depends on readers like you to meet our ongoing expenses and continue producing quality progressive journalism. Three Silicon Valley giants consume 70 percent of all online advertising dollars, so we need your help to continue doing what we do.
NCRM is independent. You won’t find mainstream media bias here. From unflinching coverage of religious extremism, to spotlighting efforts to roll back our rights, NCRM continues to speak truth to power. America needs independent voices like NCRM to be sure no one is forgotten.
Every reader contribution, whatever the amount, makes a tremendous difference. Help ensure NCRM remains independent long into the future. Support progressive journalism with a one-time contribution to NCRM, or click here to become a subscriber. Thank you. Click here to donate by check.
 |
Donald Trump is on his fourth day of promoting his false claim that 20,000 undocumented Haitian migrants were dumped on Springfield, Ohio and have destroyed the townsfolk’s way of life, including by stealing people’s pet cats and dogs and eating them. Now, one U.S. Senator is suggesting the Republican presidential nominee is using “stochastic terrorism” to help his flailing presidential campaign.
A bomb threat and another, unspecified threat forced several Springfield elementary schools and one middle school to evacuate or not open Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, the Springfield city hall was evacuated and shut down, as were some state motor vehicle offices.
The emailed bomb threat on Thursday echoed Donald Trump’s and U.S. Senator JD Vance’s racist lies.
“My hometown of Springfield is becoming a thirdworld (expletive) because you allowed the federal government to dump these (expletive) here,” the email stated, USA Today reports. “We have Haitians eating our animals and then you lie and claim this is not happening when we see this happening. I’m here to send a message, I placed a bomb in the following locations…”
RELATED: ‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies
During Tuesday’s presidential debate Trump had falsely said: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
On Thursday he used the lie to promote the candidacy of a Republican seeking to unseat Ohio Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown.
And on Friday, despite the bomb threat and other unspecified threat, Trump said in a press conference he would travel to Springfield and vowed to do “large deportations” from that city and send the legal immigrants he removes to Venezuela.
The “20,000 illegal Haitian migrants” are reported 12,000 to 15,000, ABC News reports, and they are not “illegal.” They are in the country legally, and the town as far back as a decade ago resolved to invite immigrants to help rebuild their failing economy and businesses.
Trump: We will do large deportations from Springfield, Ohio. Large deportations. We’re going to get these people out. We’re bringing them back to Venezuela pic.twitter.com/41CdKtcmwq
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2024
Also on Friday, while reportedly not repeating the racist pet-eating lie, Trump dismissed the bomb threats as unimportant.
Reporter: The mayor of Springfield, the police chief, the Republican governor have all debunked this story about pets. And now there are bomb threats at schools and kids being evacuated.
Trump: No no, no, the real threat is what’s happening at our border pic.twitter.com/oDvbGDURYB
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2024
U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) is not dismissing them, but he is asking how anyone could function again under a Trump presidency, and suggesting Trump is engaging in stochastic terrorism.
RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets
“Think about what it would be like to have four years of a President engaging in overtly racist stochastic terrorism against people pursuing the American dream and then just ask yourself what your immigrant grandparents would want you to do. Kids deserve to go to school safely,” Senator Schatz wrote.
Wajahat Ali is a New York Times contributing op-ed writer, Daily Beast columnist, and author of “Go Back to Where You Came From.” Responding to the news Friday of more school evacuations, Ali wrote: “Stochastic terrorism thanks to Trump and Vance.”
Mother Jones’s D.C. bureau chief David Corn, an MSNBC analyst, also noted: “Trump and Vance incite. Look up stochastic terrorism.”
And Mother Jones on X posted: “Days after Trump went on a racist rant during the presidential debate, the city of Springfield, Ohio, received a bomb threat that was explicitly hostile to immigrants and Haitians. This further proves that Trump’s demonizing rhetoric portends violence.”
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate
For the second day in a row, elementary school children in Springfield, Ohio, were forced to be evacuated due to threats: a bomb threat on Thursday and an unspecified threat on Friday. The threats come after Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio U.S. Senator JD Vance, have repeatedly spread lies about Haitian immigrants in Springfield this week, including that they are stealing residents’ cats and dogs and eating them.
Thursday’s bomb threat specifically mentioned the false claims about Haitian immigrants eating people’s pets, USA Today reported.
“Three schools in Springfield were evacuated or closed Friday, based on guidance from police, school officials said,” local NBC affiliate WLWT reports. “Officials with the Springfield City School District said that based on information they got from the Springfield Police Division, students at Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary were evacuated and moved to another district location.”
A Springfield middle school was also ordered closed Friday morning, before classes began, and “at least one Springfield location of the Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles is closed.”
READ MORE: ‘Screaming About Eating Cats Is Not a Solution’: Walz Rallies Michigan Crowd, Slams Trump
On Thursday, a bomb threat targeting Springfield city hall and an elementary school forced evacuations of those buildings.
“Police Chief Allison Elliott said that due to the seriousness of the threat, officials evacuated multiple buildings in addition to City Hall, including BMV Springfield Driver’s Exam Station, Ohio License Bureau Southside, Springfield Academy of Excellence and Fulton Elementary School.”
Despite the reports of the bomb threat on Thursday, hours later Donald Trump used his Truth Social platform to promote the Republican nominee working to unseat Democratic U.S. Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, by spreading more anti-Haitian immigrant racism.
“Bernie Moreno has a very good chance of winning Ohio against a Radical Left Democrat, Sherrod Brown, with what is happening in Springfield, and other parts of the State,” Trump declared Thursday afternoon, referring to the far-right extremist Republican who is currently leading in the polls by low single digits.
Trump then invoked his racist Haitian immigrant lies.
“Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.”
On Truth Social, Trump on Thursday also posted memes of cats, including one with them holding a sign that says, “Don’t let them eat us, vote for Trump.”
RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets
During Tuesday’s presidential debate, Trump had falsely claimed, “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats, they’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
USA Today also reported that the “false rumor that Haitian migrants were stealing and eating pets began to circulate in the days leading up to the debate and was further popularized through posts from running mate J.D. Vance about his own state and AI-generated images shared by Trump, Elon Musk and the Republican House Judiciary Committee.”
J.J. Abbott, former press secretary to then-Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf, responded to ABC News immigration reporter Armando Tonatiuh Torres-García’s viral social media post reporting Friday’s threat and evacuations:
“In 2018, the GOP and Trump’s anti-immigrant conspiracies led to the deadliest mass shooting in recent PA history at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. The gunman took him seriously and literally. There’s nothing funny or intriguing about this dangerous racism.”
In 2018, the GOP and Trump’s anti-immigrant conspiracies led to the deadliest mass shooting in recent PA history at a synagogue in Pittsburgh.
The gunman took him seriously and literally.
There’s nothing funny or intriguing about this dangerous racism. https://t.co/W3nCdSQEAw https://t.co/xMn9fGCOjG pic.twitter.com/ol0gXbNFQG
— J.J. Abbott 🦅 (@jjabbott) September 13, 2024
Many others responded to that reporter’s post.
“No sanitizing this. @jdvance and @realDonaldTrump bear full responsibility. They’re promoters of terrorism; and they did it intentionally,” wrote columnist, reporter, and former editor in chief of Crooked Media Brian Beutler.
“Ohio should look at this insanity and vote accordingly. Conspiracy peddling has real consequences. You can’t unring that bell. Donald Trump and JD Vance don’t care,” noted constitutional law professor and political scientist Anthony Michael Kreis.
“Donald Trump and JD Vance are terrorizing schoolchildren. They are unfit for any public office, let alone the highest,” responded attorney Andrew L. Seidel.
“JD Vance and MAGA influencers whipped up a blood libel panic and now children in Springfield are being traumatized by their lies. Hell isn’t hot enough,” commented the co-executive director of the progressive group Indivisible, Leah Greenberg.
“There’s a line from Charlottesville to Jan 6 to this. Trump speaks, his supporters act,” wrote political analyst and researcher Arieh Kovler.
“Trump could stop this but he won’t because he believes it serves his interests. It’s the same J6 behavior of spreading false conspiracy theories to inflame his supporters and then sitting back and watching instead of stopping it,” noted political science professor Michael McDonald.
READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate
Minnesota Governor and Democratic Vice Presidential nominee Tim Walz took aim at Donald Trump Thursday night at a rally in the battleground state of Michigan, where the Harris campaign is leading the ex-president by an average of less than two points.
The Detroit News’ Craig Mauger posted a photo of the overflow crowd at the Grand Rapids Public Museum:
A portion of the crowd at a museum in Grand Rapids to hear from Tim Walz tonight: pic.twitter.com/LdH5CSIVXV
— Craig Mauger (@CraigDMauger) September 12, 2024
Gov. Walz’s speech (full video here) was decidedly down-home and neighborly, but he had no trouble going on the attack as well.
He told the audience that their friends and neighbors had watched Tuesday night’s presidential debate, during which Trump had lied that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Walz did not denigrate Trump supporters. Instead, he said that after the debate, “I don’t hear them out there much. I don’t see them out there much. They’re a little bit – because they’re good people. They’re our neighbors. They’re like, ‘that didn’t look very presidential.’ Screaming about eating cats is not a solution. It’s not a solution.”
RELATED: Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets
“Well,” Walz continued, “what Kamala Harris was talking about is things that you actually care about. They might not be sitting down at the bar talking about banning books, but they might down there be talking about, ‘how can I afford a house? I’m working hard. I’m working hard. I want to have a house,’ and because that house becomes a home to some of these folks. Your real estate mogul, venture capitalist, whatever, that’s just an asset to be traded and sold to whoever you want. For us, it’s a place we gather around the kitchen table to talk to our kids about what happened in school. That’s what Kamala Harris wants for you. That’s what she wants for you.”
Tim Walz continues to be very good at this pic.twitter.com/ksbFPrvCRR
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 13, 2024
The 60-year old governor who is the only one of the four candidates on either ticket with a positive net approval rating (Harris comes in second), focused on midwestern values.
“What I am most proud of is because of all the things Donald Trump has stolen and all the things he did, what is unforgivable, is him stealing our joy. So here’s the thing, Kamala Harris is bringing not only solutions that focus on you. She’s doing it with a smile and joy on her face.”
“This guy, this guy on purpose, and make no mistake, it’s on purpose. He broke our political system. He tried to break our faith in one another. He tried to break the thing that makes Midwesterners stick together. We’re positive people, for God’s sakes. We walk on water half the year, we have to be it’s cold as hell,” Walz said. “We don’t care. We dig our neighbors out. This guy is trying to tell you your neighbors the enemy. This guy’s trying to tell you that he knows best about what folks in Grand Rapids need. Well, trust me, nothing could be further from the truth.”
“So here’s the deal, we’re nice folks. We’ll dig you out after a snow storm. We’ll say ‘hi’ at the store. Some of us might even let you merge on the highway. Not all of us,” he joked. “We have a saying for that. It’s Minnesota Nice, is what we call it. I’m sure you have it too. But the one thing I’ll tell you about Midwesterners that stretches across that beautiful blue wall of Northern America here, the one thing about us is, don’t ever mistake our kindness for weakness.”
READ MORE: Multiple-Location Bomb Threat Follows Trump and Vance’s False Dog-Eating Immigrants Claims
Walz also went after school shootings while reassuring supporters Democrats support the Second Amendment.
“Leaves are changing,” Walz said, as The Detroit News reported. “Friday night football’s back. Our kids have a new start and they’re going in. It’s a time of excitement and hope. Everything we want. That’s what we want for our kids.”
“But too many of our kids, these first days of school, are a time of sheer terror. A time that is going to stick with them forever,” he said, referencing school shootings.
“I know guns, you know guns,” he said. “Kamala Harris is a gun owner, by the way, which you found out. I’m not going to take any crap (from Republicans) about the Second Amendment. We support the Second Amendment.”
“But our first responsibility,” Walz continued, “is keeping our children safe. And you can have both.”
He also referred to shootings as “that crap,” and reminded the crowd that it “does not happen in other places in the world.”
Walz, a former U.S. Congressman who served for 24 years in the U.S. Armed Forces, called Donald Trump a “criminal.” Trump was convicted of 34 felony counts in New York for business fraud in an attempt to subvert the 2016 election.
He told the crowd Vice President Harris’s debate performance should have not been a surprise.
“She took on the predators. She took on the fraudsters,” Walz said. “She took down career criminals and powerful corporate interests, which, by the way, was on the stage the other night, all those things so, so this time, just to be clear, that criminal being on the stage got put in his place.”
“And this is what true leadership looks like. And she says this time and time again, and I love it. A mark of true leadership is not who beats people down, it’s who lifts people up, who lifts them up. So so when it’s a bully, and there’s a time she proved she can beat some people down if they need it.”
Walz: That criminal on the stage got put in his place pic.twitter.com/hDgwW4Gi4r
— Acyn (@Acyn) September 12, 2024
Watch the videos above or at this link.
READ MORE: Trump Faces Increasing Calls to Participate in Second Debate
Senator Suggests Trump Engaging in ‘Stochastic Terrorism’ Amid Pet-Eating Immigrant Lies
‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies
‘Screaming About Eating Cats Is Not a Solution’: Walz Rallies Michigan Crowd, Slams Trump
Loomer Invokes Hannibal Lecter as Trump Triples Down on Lies About Immigrants Eating Pets
Multiple-Location Bomb Threat Follows Trump and Vance’s False Dog-Eating Immigrants Claims
News3 days ago‘Screaming About Eating Cats Is Not a Solution’: Walz Rallies Michigan Crowd, Slams Trump
News3 days ago‘Hell Isn’t Hot Enough’: Fury at Trump as More School Evacuations Follow ‘Pet-Eating’ Lies
News2 days agoSenator Suggests Trump Engaging in ‘Stochastic Terrorism’ Amid Pet-Eating Immigrant Lies