Justice Antonin Scalia has been deservedly shredded for his suggestion that affirmative action harms blacks by allowing them to go to schools that are too hard for them. Well, on Sunday morning, one of the last people I expected to shred Scalia did so–Donald Trump.
Trump dropped by CNN’s “State of the Union” as part of the run-up to the last GOP debate of 2015. Host Jake Tapper asked Trump what he thought about Scalia’s suggestion that blacks would be “out of their league” at elite schools and would be better off at “less-advanced schools.” Trump let Scalia have it. Watch here.
Trump told Tapper that he thought Scalia’s comments were “very tough” to blacks. When Tapper pressed him, Trump let Scalia have it.
“I don’t like what he said, no. I don’t like what he said. I heard him, I was like, ‘Let me read it again,’ because I actually read it in print. And I’m going, I read a lot of stuff, and I’m going, ‘Whoa.'”
Granted, in that very same interview, Trump proved that he’s a stopped clock. He doubled down on his call for a ban on Muslim immigration, saying that he’s very confident that other Republicans will join him in calling for such a move. But let’s give credit where credit is due. Scalia’s comments were some of the most outrageous from a Supreme Court justice in recent memory, and no one, regardless of party, should be afraid to shred him for it.
Later on, the “State of the Union” panel discussed Trump’s comments. Watch here.
Dana Bash said, in a colossal understatement, that it’s become “anathema” for a conservative to shred Scalia, no matter how extreme Scalia may sound. She noted that given how Trump has been blasted as a bigot, it’s pretty telling that he thought Scalia’s comments were wrong. Ana Navarro said that this is par for the course for Trump, since he has frequently said things that are “opposed to conservative ideology”–and it hasn’t seemed to hurt him in the polls.
Scalia’s been wrong on a lot of things for a long time. That’s been amply established. But when he goes so far off the mark that Donald Trump has to shred him for it, that’s pretty telling.
