On MSNBC, Chris Hayes and Tim Miller condemn Michael Knowles' calls for the eradication of “transgenderism”
Miller: “This is like a prominent person within the Republican ecosystem who is making this case”
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From the March 10, 2023, edition of MSNBC's All In with Chris Hayes
CHRIS HAYES (HOST): I saw a report today, and again it's always hard to confirm these individual reports about like what book in what library in what school is or isn't there. So I saw someone mentioned that Tango Make Three had been taken out of the school in Florida, which is an amazing story about a gay couple of penguins in the Central Park Zoo. It is a great book for kids. It's a great book for kids about being gay and has obviously nothing to do a sex. And I just thought, like, whoa, in terms of going back in the clock, I remember the Heather Has Two Mommies controversy in the New York City Board of Ed in like 1992. I mean, that's 30 years ago, taking a book like that out of the library. It's bad.
TIM MILLER (FORMER RNC SPOKESMAN): Yeah, I read Tango to my daughter all the time, actually, it's a great book. So I saw DeSantis, [inaudible] I went down to Florida around his book announcement and I went to his event at the villages. What was interesting to me, because he talked about this, at first he tries to deny that these book bans are happening. Like you said, it's different in different school districts. But what is happening, what we know, is that DeSantis, on the Disney issue, was specifically talking about how Disney was sexualizing children, he uses that word multiple times. He talked about how these other books are sexualizing children. But the thing is, the Disney brouhaha came about around his Buzz Lightyear movie that had like a girl girl kiss that was like not at all sexual. And then the movie Strange World that had, I guess, the offending issue is that it was a gay son whose dad is supportive of him. There's no sex in the movie at all. And so I think that there are a lot of these examples where they're trying to blur the lines because they see a political advantage.
HAYES: Yes.
MILLER: They can say oh, we can go on offense against the LGBTQ community right now by saying that this is sexualizing them and by cherry picking a few examples and blurring the lines and I think Tango's a good example of that.
HAYES: There's something grosser too. So what you're describing is cynical, but there's actually, like… You know, Michael Knowles ... gave this disgusting speech at CPAC where he says transgenderism has to be eradicated. You know, if you got up at CPAC and you say Judaism has to be eradicated, everyone in the room, hopefully, throws their shoes and walks out because that’s a disgusting, despicable thing to say. This was met with cheers. I don't know how cynical that is or not, but there’s also like genuine desire to eradicate trans folks, particularly from public life and maybe private life.
MILLER: I think it’s true with drag queens too and look at the bans that they’re having with drag queens. That is true. And Knowles, I get that you want to diminish him because his talent is worth diminishing, but he had a podcast with Ted Cruz, they were co-podcast hosts for a while. This is like a prominent person within the Republican ecosystem who is making this case. And I do think, particularly on the gender ideology issue, on the trans issue, on the drag issue, there's a lot of genuine attacks on that community, on top of the cynical attacks I was talking about that DeSantis is engaging in.