Filling in for Chris Hayes on Monday, MSNBC’s Jen Psaki spent some time during “All In” to talk about the way the Republican Party is dealing — or rather, not dealing — with Donald Trump.
The former White House Press Secretary told viewers that the common response GOP primary candidates use in an attempt to avoid talking about Trump’s very serious legal problems is nothing but a “cop out argument.”
“Silence on those should be taken as complacent agreement with the policies of the current and overwhelming Republican primary frontrunner,” Paski argued.
Psaki noted how Trump’s polling among Republicans remains sky-high, but GOP candidates who are ostensibly running against him in the primary refuse to actually attack him. She noted they refuse to do so even considering his multiple felony indictments that include charges he tried to overthrow an election, and his mishandling of sensitive classified documents.
To demonstrate it, Psaki ran a supercut of some of the Republican primary candidates using almost identical arguments — that they want to look to the future instead of talking about the past — to avoid discussing Trump.
“‘We have to move forward. We got to quit living in the past. I look forward to having a conversation and frankly even about the future of this nation. I think we need to move forward as a country we’ve got to be looking to the future, not to the past,’” she said, summing those arguments up.
“But the problem is that all of this talk about looking forward, which by the way, is very normal campaign speak, only ignores the big political elephant in the room — Donald Trump — or maybe it’s not in the room (since) it’s talking about the debate on Wednesday. It is based on this argument they all seem to be making, that the Trump indictments have nothing to do with the policy issues presidents deal with, that’s just a distraction,” Psaki continued.
“There’s this cop out argument that you can either be talking about Trump, his legal issues in the past, or policy in the future,” Paski said. But, she continued, “There are a few more fundamental policy positions for presidents that how you view democracy and national security of the country you want to lead, including their national security secrets.”
“Holding onto classified documents, including nuclear plans, waving war plans around with a disregard for the impact on national security and the people serving you around the world is a policy position,” Paski said, referring to Trump’s classified documents charges.
“Then there’s the other federal indictments brought by Special Counsel Jack Smith, for Trump’s attempted scheme to steal the 2020 election. Believing your victory, your win, is more important than the will of the public is a policy position — as a sidebar, one that dictators take. Attempting to bend the justice system to benefit you is a policy position,” she continued.
“You don’t see the role of an independent judiciary? That’s a pretty important position to have. So have a conversation about policy issues. We can all embrace that. But don’t leave the core ones of the future of our democracy, that protection of our national security secrets, out of the conversation, because silence on those should be taken as complacent agreement with the policies of the current and overwhelming Republican primary front runner,” Psaki concluded.