RINGSIDE POLITICS – APRIL 19, 2021

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Welcome to another edition of Ringside Politics with Jeff Crouere

Today’s Hot Topics:

1) U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, Linda Thomas-Greenfield, said on Sunday that the U.S. must discuss and acknowledge its “imperfections,” calling the ability to do so “our strength.”

Appearing on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” host Margaret Brennan made note of Thomas-Greenfield’s recent remarks in which she linked America’s “original sin” of slavery to the deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and the discrimination against Muslim-Americans and Asian-Americans. Brennan questioned whether or not the U.S. was “deluding” itself into thinking it provided moral leadership to the world.

“No, I think we’re being tremendous leaders, our country is not perfect, but we continue to perfect it,” Thomas-Greenfield said. “Those imperfections are part of our history and we have to talk about them. It’s our strength that we can talk about our imperfections to the world and call out other nations for those same imperfections. So it’s not a criticism. It’s an acknowledgement of our history.”

“The fact that I came from a segregated high school and I’m now the permanent representative of the United States at the United Nations says everything about what our country is about,” Thomas-Greenfield added.

2) President Biden on Saturday described the situation at the border as a “crisis” for the first time, as he defended his administration’s walkback on refugee policy a day earlier.

“We’re going to increase the number [of refugees],” he told reporters. “The problem was that the refugee part was working on the crisis that ended up on the border with young people. We couldn’t do two things at once. But now we are going to increase the number.”

Biden’s administration has until now refused to call the dramatic spike in migrant numbers, which saw 172,000 migrant encounters in March alone, a “crisis.” Instead, it has referred to it as a “challenge” and blamed it on the Trump administration’s dismantling of asylum paths.

“The men and women of the Department of Homeland Security are working around the clock seven days a week to ensure that we do not have a crisis at the border — that we manage the challenge, as acute as the challenge is,” DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas said last month.

3) The Republican leader in the House of Representatives and an extremist congresswoman who champions “Anglo-Saxon political traditions” have demanded action against the Democratic representative Maxine Waters, after she expressed support for protesters against police brutality.

On Saturday, Waters spoke in Brooklyn Center, the Minneapolis suburb where Daunte Wright, a 20-year-old Black man, was shot and killed by police last week.

The California congresswoman spoke before final arguments on Monday in the murder trial of Derek Chauvin, the Minneapolis officer who knelt on the neck of George Floyd for more than nine minutes last May, resulting in the Black man’s death and global protests.

“I’m going to fight with all of the people who stand for justice,” said Waters, who is Black. “We’ve got to get justice in this country and we cannot allow these killings to continue.”

4) Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-N.Y.) and MSNBC host Joe Scarborough on Friday got into a heated exchange over Democratic messaging ahead of the 2022 midterm elections.

In an appearance on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Maloney, the chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, was pressed by Scarborough repeatedly about Democratic messaging on the issue of defunding the police in 2020, to which Maloney said the party was committed to fighting racial injustice.

“My argument is what are you doing about racial justice?” Maloney asked. “Our party is going to do something about it.”

Scarborough pushed back.

“It’s not the question that I’m asking, it’s the question that Republicans will continue to ask, do Democrats support defunding the police?” Scarborough asked.

Maloney responded by saying the host was “repeating Republican talking points.”

“The answer is no,” Maloney responded. “And you are asking the question and you’re repeating a Republican talking point for reasons I don’t know.”

Today’s Guests:

1) Dr. Tim Clinton, Co-Author of “Take it Back” – joins the show to discuss the importance of reclaiming biblical masculinity.

2) Chad Rogers, Publisher of TheDeadPelican.com; Ringside All-Star – joins the show to take callers and share his unique, pessimistic outlook on the future.

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