I’m surely not the first to mention ABC This Week today. It was amazing television, which is not in this case a compliment. Rudy looked even more unhinged, if that is possible. Keith Ellison showed us why he should be the next DNC chair. And then …
Fireworks erupt on the Round Table ...
So, of course I can’t emebed the video here. ABC must get its clicks. In this case though, the trip across the digital divide is worth it. Mary Matalin decided that she could spar with Van Jones and get him to walk back the white lash comments. Go check it out. It was awesomely good fun.
But I did get a screen capture and came up with a few fresh memes for you, my DK family.
And a big ol batch of transcript …
MATALIN: The -- but not -- it's not -- he's going to start with the regulatory ones, because he wants to grow the economy.
The problem with Keith Ellison's message and what you all are saying -- and I -- and I respect what you're saying because we have been there -- is -- and another irony of this campaign -- is that Barack Obama always won astronomically on his own, but he has completely devastated the party. He's lost the Senate, the House, 30 governorships, over 900 legislatures...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: That's why we need Keith Ellison...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: That's why we need...
(CROSSTALK)
JONES: What you just said is the best case for Keith Ellison. Keith Ellison is an organizer's organizer.
MATALIN: That's right.
JONES: He -- he's one of the only Muslims in Congress, so you have a big statement there.
MATALIN: What's his message?
He's going to take care of...
(CROSSTALK) VANDEN HEUVEL: His message is...
JONES: Voters over donors.
VANDEN HEUVEL: -- his message is...
JONES: Voters over donors.
VANDEN HEUVEL: Vote -- his message is voters over donors, it's going to the grassroots, it's connecting the movement of our time to what's going on in cities, states and inside the beltway.
The movements are where the energy are…
…………..
STEPHANOPOULOS: Yeah, we're just about out of time. Van, you said the whitelash...
JONES: I said and stand by it. I said that race was a part, and there was a part, that alt-right part, that was a part of the whitelash. And if you listened to the whole quote, you would agree with what I said.
MATALIN: I did listen and again you said what do I tell the kids? What I would tell your kids, I'm a black man in America who went to Yale, who has written books, who served a president and now...
JONES: And ninth generation American, ma'am, and I'm the first one in my family born with all my rights. I'm a ninth generation American. And so we have not escaped because I went to Yale all the problems of this country.
MATALIN: So, you should be a racial polemicist. You should be a racial reconciler.
JONES: You should be ashamed of your self to say that to my face. I have spent more time in this country...
MATALIN: Say it behind your back would be better?
JONES: Hold on a second, I spent more time than you have trying to be a racial reconciler.
MATALIN: Really? How do you know that? Do you anything about me? Do you know anything about me?
JONES: Apparently you don't know anything about me.
MATALIN: Yes, I do know your daddy, your grandparents were teachers. Your grandfather was a bishop.
JONES: George, this is a problem that we have right now. It is in fact the case there was a populist revolt in this country both Sanders and Trump, but one of them was marbled through with this alt-right stuff. If someone like myself, who is married to a white woman, who has spent my entire life building bridges, can't point out the alt-right whitelash reaction without being accused of being a racial polemicist, we're going to have a big problem.
(CROSSTALK)
VANDEN HEUVEL: Have you no sense of decency to say that to a man who has been a healer throughout horrific brutal campaign, he has spoken sanity to power. And to those who...
MATALIN: OK, my deepest apologies. You don't know anything about me. You don't know anything about my healing and I would say there are ways to get to reconciliation different from calling -- focusing on the toxic elements as you did...
JONES: You have to talk about both.