MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle pushed back on radio host Mark Thompson for equating sexual assault and blackface in reference to the multiple scandals facing top Virginia politicians on her show Thursday afternoon.
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“I promise, I’m coming from a genuine place of I don’t know the answer. So what do you do with it if it’s a he said/she said?” Ruhle asked.
“Well, I don’t know. But I know one thing. I do know one thing,” Thompson responded. “And I think Kamala Harris has to consider this. As many people who would say we need to take Dr. Tyson as seriously as Dr. Blasey Ford, if it boils down to Justin Fairfax having to resign and the two blackface people don’t, then those very same people will say, now wait a minute, that’s sort of a double standard.”
Ruhle pushed back, “But hold on a second. Sexual assault is a crime, and blackface is awful, but it’s not a crime.”
“Well, but the calls have been for them to resign too —,” Thompson answered, before being cut off.
“But I’m saying those are two different things,” Ruhle added.
“You have double victimization. You have Dr. Tyson as an African-American woman being victimized. And then you have an African-American elected official with an enormous black vote in Virginia. He has to pay a price and nobody else does,” he responded.
Ruhle continued, “Yeah, but he’d be paying a price for something different than what the other two would be paying for.”