Ali Velshi: “With President Donald Trump failing to separate himself from racists, white nationalists and conspiracy theorists, the lines between a militant fantasy and reality are getting awful blurry. Trump is courting danger by playing footsie with armed paramilitary groups, potentially encouraging violence and, by doing so, openly encouraging potential illegal activity, since it is illegal for armed private citizens to try to enforce laws or enact new ones.”
“Trump’s lack of full-throated, robust responses to alleged members of a Michigan militia who, allegedly, were plotting the abduction, unlawful extradition and ‘trial’ of Whitmer, as well as to attacks on the Michigan State Capitol and a police station, has many wondering what he is signaling by avoiding criticizing those groups. And what Trump doesn’t say can be equally as dangerous; in any other era, the response of a president to news of the arrests would have been to condemn the plot and express solidarity with and support for the governor or whomever the target was. But Trump tweeted criticism of Whitmer for the same reasons the conspirators wanted to harm her: the Covid-19-related restrictions that she, like several other governors, had enacted. He sided with the literal enemy of the state and blamed its victim.”