During Monday night’s two-hour “A Nation in Crisis” special, anchors Rachel Maddow and Nicolle Wallace were amazed that President Donald Trump is unwelcome in El Paso following Saturday’s white nationalist terrorist attack.
The anchors were joined by Rep. Veronica Escobar (D-TX), who represents El Paso in Congress.
“The president has used the words in the clips that you’ve shown that have caused a tremendous amount of pain and that have fueled violence. Those words are still hanging out there. He needs to recognize his role. He needs to recognize that those words have power. He needs to apologize, and he needs to take them back,” Escobar demanded.
“You know, we were told by law enforcement earlier that we have to be concerned about copycat acts of violence. It would go a long way for the president to say, ‘I used racist language, I used words that dehumanized people and I was wrong and I take them back.’ Only after he does that should he be welcomed into our community,” she explained.
The anchors were astonished Trump is unwanted in El Paso.
“Can I just say it’s such a weird thing, though, to be at a place in our country where after a national tragedy, the president isn’t welcome,” Wallace said. “It is such — you just have to stop sometimes in these jobs and point out when it is not normal.”
“Clearly there are meaningful differences of opinion here, but to see the emotion with which the congresswoman was conveying that — not only for herself but for her constituents — that they feel he is the cause of so much pain, that is profound when you talk about national leadership,” Maddow said.
“It’s a huge deal,” Wallace replied.
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