Oral arguments are scheduled for next week in both federal appeals court cases of President Trump’s proposed travel ban, which blocks various people from eight countries, six of them with Muslim majorities, from entering the United States. Mehdi Hasan, award-winning British journalist and broadcaster at Al Jazeera English, discusses the impact Trump’s recent retweets of Islamophobic messages and videos could have on the cases and notes, “This is the way he’s always been.”
TRANSCRIPT
AMY GOODMAN: Finally, Mehdi Hasan, we wanted to turn to the issue of Trump’s proposed travel ban, which blocks various people from eight countries, six of them with Muslim majorities, from entering the United States. But federal judges in Maryland and Hawaii have partially blocked its implementation. Oral arguments are scheduled for next week in both federal appeals court cases.
Neal Katyal, a lawyer on the Hawaii travel ban case, posted a link to news coverage Wednesday of the president’s tweets, writing, “Thanks! See you in court next week.” What impact do you think Trump’s retweets of these videos that have been so widely condemned across the political spectrum will have on his attempt to enforce this third iteration of a travel ban? What many call a Muslim ban.
MEHDI HASAN: It is a very good point, Amy. And every judge who has looked at this since January, when the first version of the Muslim ban came out, has actually referred to Trump’s tweets, Trump’s statements during the campaign, to point out that when the Trump administration says this has nothing to do with religion or Islam, hold on, the president of the United States himself said either in office, on Twitter, or on the campaign trail, that it is to do with Islam. It is to do with Muslims.
And interestingly, it is not just Neal Katyal, the lawyer, pointing to the tweets. Yesterday, Amy, the Deputy White House Press Secretary on board Air Force One, Raj Shah, when asked by journalists is the president hostile toward Muslims, does he have a problem with Muslims given these tweets, what did the White House Deputy Press Secretary say? He said, “Well, I think the president has addressed that with his travel order.”
So the White House Deputy Press Secretary himself referred to the travel order as being about Muslims. So when the White House next lies and says it has nothing to do with Muslims, their own administration keeps undermining them by keep — you know, occasionally, accidentally, the most dishonest administration in modern history tells the truth.
AMY GOODMAN: The terms “unhinged,” “unbound,” “untethered,” “losing it,” “unstable.” The New York Times writing a major piece about what is going on in the White House right now with Trump tweeting out conspiracy theories, once again talking about President Obama being illegitimate, that he wasn’t born in the United States. Saying that perhaps the “Access Hollywood” video in fact wasn’t real, wasn’t his voice, even though he acknowledged it and apologized for it. And then last night, when talking about the tax plan, reading script that said something like rocket fuel for the economy, got inspired to say, oh by the way, rocket fuel, rocket man, and then called the North Korean leader “a sick puppy.” All of this is happening in the midst of this major escalation with North Korea that could lead to a nuclear war, as he attacks his closest ally, the British Prime Minister, Theresa May, who he might need in this case. What about this? This most unstable time?
MEHDI HASAN: I think the main way to deal with Trump, to try and respond to Trump, is to stop being surprised. We have to — I know it is hard for us to stop being shocked, because he is so good at shocking us, but I think we have to try and stop being shocked if we are going to tackle the menace that he poses to global stability and peace.
Because look, he said he was a conspiracy theorist during his campaign. He went on Infowars and thanked Alex Jones. He told us he was a conspiracy theorist. We shouldn’t be shocked when he is a conspiracy theorist in office. He told us he was a white nationalist on the campaign trail. He retweeted accounts like White Genocide when he was a candidate. So we shouldn’t be shocked when he becomes president and starts promoting white nationalists on Twitter.
This is who he has always been. Dangerous, unstable, a white nationalist, a conspiracy theorist. It’s who he has always been over the decades. So I’m not sure why so many journalists, especially people who go to the White House and ask these questions every day of Sarah Huckabee Sanders — you know, start from the premise that he is who he says he is. He is a white nationalist. He is a conspiracy theorist. He is unstable. Some of America’s leading psychiatrists have put together a book pointing out that he is a danger to us all because he is so unstable. And therefore we have to start recognizing what’s in front of us, and stop pretending that this is any kind of normal president. He is not.
AMY GOODMAN: Mehdi Hasan, we want to thank you for being with us. Award-winning British journalist, broadcaster at Al Jazeera English, host of Al-Jazeera program “UpFront,” columnist for The Intercept. We will link to your piece on the criticism of Thomas Friedman’s piece in The New York Times. Also contributing editor to the New Statesman magazine in the UK This is Democracy Now! When we come back, we will be speaking with the Nobel prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. Stay with us.
Truthout Is Preparing to Meet Trump’s Agenda With Resistance at Every Turn
Dear Truthout Community,
If you feel rage, despondency, confusion and deep fear today, you are not alone. We’re feeling it too. We are heartsick. Facing down Trump’s fascist agenda, we are desperately worried about the most vulnerable people among us, including our loved ones and everyone in the Truthout community, and our minds are racing a million miles a minute to try to map out all that needs to be done.
We must give ourselves space to grieve and feel our fear, feel our rage, and keep in the forefront of our mind the stark truth that millions of real human lives are on the line. And simultaneously, we’ve got to get to work, take stock of our resources, and prepare to throw ourselves full force into the movement.
Journalism is a linchpin of that movement. Even as we are reeling, we’re summoning up all the energy we can to face down what’s coming, because we know that one of the sharpest weapons against fascism is publishing the truth.
There are many terrifying planks to the Trump agenda, and we plan to devote ourselves to reporting thoroughly on each one and, crucially, covering the movements resisting them. We also recognize that Trump is a dire threat to journalism itself, and that we must take this seriously from the outset.
After the election, the four of us sat down to have some hard but necessary conversations about Truthout under a Trump presidency. How would we defend our publication from an avalanche of far right lawsuits that seek to bankrupt us? How would we keep our reporters safe if they need to cover outbreaks of political violence, or if they are targeted by authorities? How will we urgently produce the practical analysis, tools and movement coverage that you need right now — breaking through our normal routines to meet a terrifying moment in ways that best serve you?
It will be a tough, scary four years to produce social justice-driven journalism. We need to deliver news, strategy, liberatory ideas, tools and movement-sparking solutions with a force that we never have had to before. And at the same time, we desperately need to protect our ability to do so.
We know this is such a painful moment and donations may understandably be the last thing on your mind. But we must ask for your support, which is needed in a new and urgent way.
We promise we will kick into an even higher gear to give you truthful news that cuts against the disinformation and vitriol and hate and violence. We promise to publish analyses that will serve the needs of the movements we all rely on to survive the next four years, and even build for the future. We promise to be responsive, to recognize you as members of our community with a vital stake and voice in this work.
Please dig deep if you can, but a donation of any amount will be a truly meaningful and tangible action in this cataclysmic historical moment.
We’re with you. Let’s do all we can to move forward together.
With love, rage, and solidarity,
Maya, Negin, Saima, and Ziggy