Tavis Smiley: Rush to Normalize a ‘Racist, Sexist’ Trump Presidency Troubling

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” talk show host and political commentator Tavis Smiley said he was troubled by “the rush to normalize” President Donald Trump’s “racist, sexist, classist campaign” and now his the normalization of the Muslim ban.

Partial transcript as follows:

SMILEY: But what troubles me, Chuck, is that we, too many of us, that is, rushed to normalize a racist, sexist, classist campaign that he ran to win this office. And now we seem to be rushing to normalize a Supreme Court process that trampled on the Constitution just a year ago. But now it’s just — so now we’re into this conversation about how should Democrats handle this. We’re normalizing this too fast. We’re normalizing a Muslim ban. We’re normalizing a religious test. We’re normalizing all the things that we’ve been talking about here today, Alex. And it troubles me, what this ultimately means for the future of this democracy if we continue in this town and beyond to normalize this kind of unrepentant behavior.

CASTELLANOS: I think we have to put Tavis down as undecided here on some of these issues. Look, I think the criticism of Trump as a racist campaign is way beyond the mark. This is somebody– I mean let’s face it, the country– look at what’s happened in our inner cities. How much better did black America’s lives get for the last eight years? It did not. How much better did our public schools get? They did not. So I would say while there are things Donald Trump should not have said, yes. But look at what has been done to this country–

SMILEY: I don’t want to–

CASTELLANOS: — that’s a reaction. I think that’s a different kind of prejudice.

SMILEY: I don’t want to re-litigate the campaign, number one. I don’t want to take–

CASTELLANOS: Now you don’t. But I do.

SMILEY: But I don’t want to take Chuck too far off-field. What I do want to say is that racism, sexism, classism, by any other definition, Alex, is the consternation of someone’s humanity. And there are a whole lot of Americans who felt that during that campaign and are feeling it right now with the way we’re normalizing this kind of nonsensical behavior.

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