MS NOW’s Catherine Rampell Vents Trump Admin Aims to ‘Bring Back’ Hate Speech After Uproar Over Coast Guard’s Designation for Swastikas

MS NOW’s Catherine Rampell said there is a “broader effort” from President Donald Trump’s administration to “bring back or de-stigmatize, I guess, hate speech” during Saturday evening’s episode of The Weekend: Primetime.

Her observation was made during a discussion with her fellow co-hosts about the uproar over the Coast Guard’s designation for swastikas, nooses, and the Confederate flag; The Washington Post reported on Thursday the U.S. Coast Guard would be reclassifying those as “potentially divisive symbols” — a decision that was immediately walked back following the report.

Rampell said the pivot showed the Coast Guard was looking to “cover their rear ends because they realize this is not a good look for them.”

She added the aforementioned comment a moment later, saying the Coast Guard story symbolized how the Trump Administration aimed to make “hate speech” more acceptable.

The Administration, she continued, was also looking to “re-stigmatize or stigmatize anew American heroes and rainbows and DEI. There’s been a lot going on within this Department of Defense, and DHS in this particular case, to try to basically get rid of diversity.”

Co-host Antonia Hylton agreed, saying several departments within the federal government were obsessed with a “bizarro” aesthetic that harkened back to the 1920s, ’30s, and ’50s.

“This constant stream of ‘Mad Men’-style advertising, for some reason… that is just consistently white men,” Hylton said. “Very fit men, white families, these sort of religious over and under-tones. It’s all very odd.”

Elise Jordan agreed with her other co-hosts as well, saying it was “tacky.”

The U.S. Coast Guard, following the WaPo report, released a new policy confirming that symbols like the swastika are prohibited.

“The Coast Guard does not tolerate the display of divisive or hate symbols and flags, including those identified with oppression or hatred. These symbols reflect hateful and prohibited conduct that undermines unit cohesion,” Admiral Kevin Lunday, acting commandant of the Coast Guard, said.

Rampell, at the beginning of the segment, said the one bright spot about the story was that it showed the Trump Administration was “capable of shame.”

Watch their discussion on the topic above, via MS NOW.

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