Jake Tapper and Katrina Pierson meet again. This wasn’t guaranteed to happen, for Pierson didn’t appear on any talk shows for a few days, and her absence was noticed, almost as if the Trump campaign had put her on ice. She’s often the least prepared Donald Trump spokesperson with time-bending takes on everything from the Iraq war to the invasion of Afghanistan. She’s terrible at spinning falsehoods, but still tries with everything from Trump’s immigration stance to his “2nd Amendment” controversy. Pierson even ridiculously “diagnosed” Hillary Clinton with brain damage.
Pierson is back, and she’s a few days late with her special analysis of Clinton’s “basket of deplorables” comment that labelled half of Trump’s supporters as “racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic.” This spawned plenty of Internet and media conversation, but perhaps the most notable reaction occurred when Mike Pence declined to call David Duke “deplorable” because he doesn’t like to call people names. This was one intended topic of Tapper’s conversation with Pierson, who was playing catch up to grand effect. The two discussed the finer points of “deplorable” as it relates to Islamophobia.
Tapper wished to discuss Pence’s refusal to label Duke as “deplorable,” and Pierson tried to claim that Clinton used the word to describe people who don’t want “ISIS in their communities.” Tapper patiently tried to explain: “People call people who hate Muslims ‘Islamophobic.’ But people do not say that about people who don’t want ISIS to move in.” Pierson was adamant:
“When someone who simply wants to secure the border is somehow a racist or a bigot. When someone wants to control our illegal immigration are labeled racists and bigots. People who want to stop ISIS from coming into their communities are called ‘Islamophobic.’ These are hard working American citizens … To insult them is absolutely absurd.”
Tapper wasn’t having it. He wearily informed her, “Katrina … no one has called people who don’t want ISIS to move into their neighborhood ‘Islamophobic.’ That has never happened in the history of the world.” Despite the reality check, Pierson insisted, “That is absolutely what they are talking about.”
Amazing. Here’s the full segment of this edition of Tapper vs. Pierson.
