Andrea Mitchell on ‘Shithole’ Remarks: ‘Something Is Wrong With Our Culture,’ ‘It Starts at the Top’

Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” MSNBC host and network regular Andrea Mitchell said President Donald Trump’s reported “shithole” comment showed something was “wrong with our culture,” and that it started “at the top.”

Mitchell said, “You know, I’m looking at this clip, and you could say that he had me at the birth certificate. How much evidence do we need? And I’m not, you know, one to use labels, but it is so upsetting to all of us who come from families of immigrants, particularly people of color, to children.”

She continued, “I was really struck by something —well, first of all, Paul Ryan in the moment saying it was, you know, unfortunate and unhelpful and Rand Paul trying to make those excuses today. Republican leaders and others who refuse to call what it is by its name and speak to the ugliness. The Washington Post yesterday had a very compelling analysis of this. The author combined what these Republicans and others who did not walk out of the room at a dinner party, if you hear an anti-semitic comment, if you don’t call it out, to what happened in Maryland when the University of Maryland hospital put a naked woman in a hospital gown and socks in 30-degree weather on the street close to midnight, just patient dumping. Something is wrong with our culture, and it starts at the top. The leader of the free world, the leader of our country, needs no show compassion and humanity.”

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