Thursday on MSNBC’s “Hardball,” while discussing Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s speech at the Republican Jewish Coalition’s presidential forum, the editorial director of The Huffington Post Howard Fineman said Trump is appealing to the “dark heart of fear” and “trafficking in hate.”
Host Chris Matthews said, “Trump’s remarks seem like a calculated appeal for support. Forry-three percent of Republicans say they believe President Obama is a Muslim. Trump’s chief rival, Ted Cruz, frequently attacks the president for refusing to call terrorists radical Islamists and Trump is implying that Obama is in league with them and that is what he is doing….The implication is clear and suggestion is clear that he has something to hide. Something in his background like the fact that he is really maybe one of them if you will, one of the terror people. He says it in such a dark way.”
Fineman said, “Well this is the dark heart of fear Donald Trump has been appealing to from the moment he came on the scene as a political figure during the movement that he started in 2012. He is continuing to use it as his main emotional calling card. The center piece of his campaign, and I covered his campaign for quite a while is fear. Fear of the outsider. whatever mystery or implications he can create or sew he is going to do it because he presents himself as somehow the shining knight that is going to take care of it all.”
He added, “The people in the room that applauded today when Donald Trump was trafficking in that kind of hate should be ashamed of themselves.”
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