I Question Dana Milbank About His Claim that Trump Is a Racist

When I hosted the Laura Ingraham radio show on Wednesday, one of our guests was Dana Milbank of the Washington Post. I quizzed Milbank about a column he had written two days before, asserting that Donald Trump is a bigot and a racist. Milbank got a little prickly; as a liberal journalist, he apparently isn’t used to being challenged. But it was, I thought, a good and civil exchange. The audio, about 15 minutes long, is here:

I will be interested to learn what our readers think of this exchange. Does Milbank make a persuasive case? Or, more pertinently, does he make a plausible case?

My own opinion is that Trump is not a racist. However, I also think that he is careless and undisciplined, which manifests itself in several unfortunate ways, including his tendency to exaggerate and to get facts wrong. If Trump’s carelessness also conveys to substantial numbers of voters–Milbank may or may not be right, but he certainly is not alone–that he is a bigot, is Trump an optimal presidential candidate? One would think not.

Certainly we should not give credence to false allegations of racism, which are all too common. But if a candidate has opened himself up to such charges and made them plausible by his own lack of skill and discipline, we should find a better candidate. That, I think, is the question that Republican voters should consider. Scott makes a similar point here.

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