Larry sits down with republican and democratic strategists to analyze party responses after President Trump backtracked his criticism of the white nationalists in Charlottesville by condemning violence "on many sides." We also dive into what each country wants to get out of the NAFTA renegotiations starting today; what is the alt-left?; and more.
Parsing political strategies after Trump’s latest Charlottesville comments
President Donald Trump took to the podium at Trump Tower Tuesday for an infrastructure presser that quickly took a turn into a heated back and forth on his Charlottesville comments.
Trump, who appeared to have prepared statements from his Saturday statement on Charlotteville close at hand for the conference, decided to go off-script instead and open the floor for questions. As reported by the Los Angeles Times, reporters asked questions about the president’s remarks on the Charlottesville protests, in which he failed to condemn white nationalists at Saturday’s rally.
Trump reiterated his initial statement about the incident, where he placed blame for the violence “on many sides,” and went on to say that counter protesters against the white nationalists in Charlottesville were also at fault. He went on to say that not all protesters of removing the General Robert E. Lee statue at the rally were white supremacists, and asked if historical connections to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson should be erased because they were slave owners. The president also condemned the white nationalist who was charged with driving his car into a group of counter-protesters, which killed one woman.
So what is the fallout from Trump’s press conference? Will his base be supportive of his statements about Charlottesville? And how are Republicans and Democrats reacting?
Guests:
Noah Bierman, White House reporter for the Los Angeles Times; he’s been following the story; he tweets
Charles Kesler, professor of government at Claremont McKenna College and editor of the Claremont Review of Books
Sean T. Walsh, Republican political analyst and partner at Wilson Walsh Consulting in San Francisco; he is a former adviser to California Governors Pete Wilson and Arnold Schwarzenegger and a former White House staffer for Presidents Reagan and H.W. Bush
Matt Rodriguez, Democratic strategist and founder and chief executive officer of Rodriguez Strategies; he is also a former senior Obama advisor in 2008; he tweets
The ethics of revealing Charlottesville white nationalist protesters on social media
In the aftermath of the Charlottesville monument protests, many white nationalists who participated in the rallies are getting some unwanted attention.
As reported by TechCrunch, the Twitter user @YesYoureRacist has a mission to identify protesters online, what’s commonly known as doxxing. That led to the firing of Cole White, who worked at a Berkeley hot dog restaurant, Top Dog. The employer put a statement on the restaurant’s door, saying that White’s actions were not supported by the business.
Sign on the door of Top Dog on Durant Ave confirms Cole White is no longer employed by the chain
— Harini Shyamsundar (@hshyamsundar)
NY Daily News writer Shaun King also
to identify white nationalist rally participants named as suspects in the assault of a counter protester. And there have been some misidentification issues with doxxing on social media. @YoureARacist issued an apology after falsely accusing YouTube personality Joey Salads of wearing a Nazi armband. So what are the ethics of doxing on Twitter and other social media platforms?
Guest:
Josh Constine, editor-at-large for TechCrunch; he tweets
NAFTA renegotiations begin: A view from the three countries involved
Ambassadors from Canada and Mexico are in Washington D.C. to begin talks with the U.S. about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA).
President Trump has called it an awful deal for the U.S. and talked about throwing it out altogether at one point, but has since dialed back his rhetoric and called for the agreement to be reshaped.
We’ll talk with reporters based in each of the three involved countries about what each is looking for, areas where there is room for compromise (or not) and how each country’s wishlist jives with the others.
Guests:
Megan Cassella, trade reporter for POLITICO; she tweets
Kate Linthicum, L.A. Times correspondent based in Mexico City; she tweets
Theo Argitis, Ottawa Bureau Chief for Bloomberg News; he tweets
Trump says ‘alt-left’ bears some responsibility for Charlottesville - so what is the ‘alt-left?’
On Tuesday, Trump told reporters that the “alt-left” bears some responsibility for the violence at the white nationalist protest in Charlottesville, Virginia. But what, exactly, is the “alt-left?”
In the Atlantic’s September cover story, “The Rise of the Violent Left,” Peter Beinart traces the history of Antifa – antifascists or Anti-Fascist Action – from its roots in the militant left fighting European fascism in the 1920s to its reactionary revival due to Neo-Nazi movements in the 70s and 80s, to today’s revival of Antifa in response to the rise in white nationalism in America.
Beinart writes that Antifa is a disparate movement, but many of its subscribers are anarchists and the unifying ethos has to do with circumventing policy in favor of direct action, such as destroying corporate property, doxing Neo-Nazis and breaking up white nationalist gatherings, by violence, if necessary.
Where did Antifa come from? What is it today? And is it fair to equate it, as President Trump did Tuesday, to the alt-right?
Guest:
Peter Beinart, contributing editor for The Atlantic where his recent story is “The Rise of the Violent Left;” he is also the senior columnist for Forward.com and an Associate Professor of Journalism and political science at the City University of New York; he tweets
In light of white nationalism and counter-protests, we revisit the First Amendment
The events of the last week – the violence during a white nationalist rally in Charlottesville this weekend, the far-right planning rallies across the U.S. and the spotlight swiveling to Antifa, the militant left, which advocates fighting fascism with violence – are bubbling over into a larger conversation about the scope of the First Amendment.
Here it is, in full:
AMENDMENT 1.
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
The militant left, or Antifa, advocates the use of direct action, such as breaking up white nationalist rallies and violence, if necessary. In their view, white nationalist hate speech incites violence, which validates a violent response. But hate speech is protected under the First Amendment, just like any other speech.
So what are the legal limits of protesting hate speech? Is violence ever justifiable and in what situations? What are the strategic and legal approaches to fighting movements that protesters view as morally reprehensible?
Guests:
Jody Armour, professor of Law at the University of Southern California
Eugene Volokh, professor of law at UCLA