Chris Hayes Calls Trump Efforts to ‘Punish’ Pro-Palestine Speech ‘the Closest to McCarthyism in My Lifetime’ | Video

Chris Hayes was blunt during a commentary related to the wave of arrests and deportations of foreign nationals, calling the Trump administrations efforts to suppress or “punish” pro-Palestinian speech “the closest to McCarthyism in my lifetime.”

That assessment came while discussing Rümeysa Öztürk, the Tufts PhD student who was abducted by immigration agents and sent to a Louisiana prison facility over an she wrote for the school paper criticizing Israel’s conduct in the Gaza war and Tufts handling of student protests. On Wednesday three judges on the US Second Circuit Court of Appeals, a three judge panel ruled that Öztürk must be returned to Vermont and that her appeals must be heard there.

“She’s currently being imprisoned for her protected free speech,” Hayes said, calling her abduction “part of a authoritarian attempt to criminalize thought, criminalize political speech and protest in this country,” adding that “the Trump administration is attempting to use the full force of the government to punish those who disagree with its support for Israel’s war.”

Hayes then noted several other harrowing instances of this policy and how it’s even being applied to U.C. citizens, and said, “this atmosphere, this use of pressure and legal means to kind of render taboo an ideological tendency, it’s the closest I’ve seen the McCarthyism in my lifetime.

“It’s an attempt to take a specific, constitutionally protected ideological perspective and intimidate people away from expressing it through threats of force and banishment,” Hayes continued. “It’s gotten the point where, when I saw these viral images of musician Dave Matthews holding up signs reading ‘stop the genocide’ and ‘stop killing children,’ honestly, my first thought was to check his immigration status for fear the Trump administration would try to have him deported. Turns out, though born in South Africa, he’s a naturalized US citizen.”

Hayes then said people are protesting that “Gaza has been bombed for a year and a half. Best estimates we have are that 15,000 children have been killed. A million people have been dislocated. The entire strip has been effectively raised to the ground,” adding that much of this happened with previous President Joe Biden’s “explicit” support.

“And after all that, the Trump administration says that the real extremism, the danger is the one happening on college campuses.”

Hayes then took some time bringing viewers up to speed on recent news out of Israel, including as the New York Times reported, plans to capture more land and displace more Gaza residents. He also discussed the Trump administrations reported negotiations with other countries to take in Palestinian refugees.

“Currently we are looking at U.S. and Israeli policy that is more aggressively radical and extremist, more flagrantly in violation of international law and human rights than I think we’ve seen before,” Hayes said. “But if you point that out, or you hold up a sign, or you protest, or you write a student op-ed on campus, the Trump administration may try to label you a terrorist and enemy of the state, and have you removed from the country or put into detention for months.”

Hayes then criticized unnamed Democratic leaders who, he said, “have effectively abdicated their leadership on this issue. So what exactly are young Americans who, as almost every poll shows, have increasingly sour them Israeli policy in Gaza. What are they supposed to do? Exactly? Should students shut up and pretend that their government isn’t abetting mass civilian death and population transfer? I don’t think that’s going to happen. I can tell you this no amount of repression and bullying is going to successfully stamp out the movement against this ongoing carnage, if history is any indication it is just as likely to make the movement, stronger.”

You can watch the full clip below:

The post Chris Hayes Calls Trump Efforts to ‘Punish’ Pro-Palestine Speech ‘the Closest to McCarthyism in My Lifetime’ | Video appeared first on TheWrap.