Elie Mystal Dings Nikki Haley's Civil War Remarks
The Nation's Elie Mystal managed to get a shot in at Nikki Haley and her refusal to say slavery caused the Civil War, while explaining why Republicans are huge hypocrites on the issue of states' rights.
The Nation's Elie Mystal managed to get a shot in at Nikki Haley and her refusal to say slavery caused the Civil War, while explaining why Republicans are huge hypocrites on the issue of states' rights.
Here's Mystal on MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes this Thursday being asked about the news that Maine just barred Trump from their primary ballot:
JOHNSON: Elie, what is it going to matter, will it matter actually to the Supreme Court, appellate courts, federal courts, that this decision is primarily out of a Secretary of State's office, as opposed to Colorado, where it's a decision that came from state judges? Is that going to matter to anyone since they're both sort of basing it off the same principles from 14th Amendment?
MYSTAL: I think it should matter because, and want to be really clear about this, and I would like, if she's listening, Nikki Haley to like lean in and listen real close to what I'm about to say, because the Civil War was about slavery, but this right here, this, my friend, is about states' rights.
Like, that's what's actually going on here. All of the Maine Secretary of State is saying is that she has the authority to protect the integrity of the Maine ballot according to the laws of Maine. That is a straight up states' rights issue. Right?
This is not really about the kind of larger federal concerns that some people want to bring into it. This is whether or not Maine, or Colorado, or Minnesota, or Michigan, or any of the other states have control over their ballot.
As I've said many times on this show and on others, we do not have one federal election system. We have 50 federal election systems, all determined by each individual state.
Now, frankly I don't like it that way. I'd rather have just one system, but Republicans have determined and demanded that we have a 50 state solution, where every state has to have their own election rules. The Maine Secretary of State's is applying Maine's election rules to the Maine ballot. Republicans should love this.
They're having hissy fits, so they definitely do not love what's going on. And Haley has done nothing but dig in deeper since her remarks went viral, blaming a "Democrat plant" for asking her the question and then doing a very lame job of cleanup after that.