Jennings to Elie Mystal: ‘You’re OK with People Being Radicalized, You Just Want to Disarm Them’

PHILLIP: “The first assassination attempt, you know, Trump and his advisors said that he was a changed man, he was gonna bring the country together. He — he didn‘t try to tear the country apart for about four days. But there‘s clear — it‘s clear he abandoned that mission. I mean, wouldn‘t it be the thing to do right now to take that back up and say, ‘Starting with me.’”
JENNINGS: “Yeah, I think any politician could go on TV tonight and say, ‘I am going to take personal responsibility for my own language and my own actions.’ But this point about deradicalization, what I mean is, look, when you‘ve had this kind of language about somebody be the underpinning of a campaign for years, and intensely for the last several months, the only way to unwind it is for the people who‘ve been saying it, chiefly the president and the vice presiden,t to go on TV and say, ‘You know what? We went too far and what we said, honestly, is not true. The country will not end.’”
MYSTAL: “I think the Democrats will tamp down their language about Trump the moment Trump tamps down his language about the Democrats, about immigrants, about people of color, about women, and not a moment before.”
JENNINGS: “”hat about — how many — how many times you‘re going to shoot at him? How many times is that?”
MYSTAL: “Is your argument literally that you are not under threat unless somebody directly takes a shot at you? Is that actually what you‘re saying? Do you have access to Secret Service files about how many threats Harris and Biden have received over the past year, how many threats Barack Obama, the first black president, received for eight years while he was in the White House? Do you have those Secret Service files or are you just out here talking because somebody was caught in the bushes on Saturday.”
JENNINGS: “Somebody?”
MYSTAL: “If you want something done, if you want to get away from this violence and hatred, the clearest thing to do is to take away the weapons that these people are using to cause the violence and hatred. Rhetoric does not kill people, guns do.”
JENNINGS: “So you‘re okay with people being radicalized, you just want to disarm them, but it‘s okay to continue to lie to them about what will happen to the country if your political opponents win?”
PHILLIP: “All right, I’m gonna give Tim last word and then we got to go.”
NAFTALI: “We — we‘ve got to make steps towards each other.”