Joy Reid: ‘I don’t think we’ve truly been one country’

Calls for Donald Trump to unite the country after what’s being considered one of the most divisive presidential elections in modern history echo loudly in the weeks following Nov. 8. Yet MSNBC host Joy Reid sees a fundamental problem with this cry for action.

“I don’t think we’ve truly been one country,” Reid told Dan Rather on Tuesday. “Donald Trump’s election has put the lie to the idea that we were ever a united country.”

She added, “We’ve been a set of countries living together in sort of, an agreement. A sort of non-revolutionary agreement. Right after the revolution we decided to be together. But I don’t know that we’re one country to be honest with you, Dan. And I don’t know that you can just united us under the banner of the idea of the presidency.”

“Donald Trump has thrown all the norms out. All the norms are gone. Even the idea that the president has to unite the country is gone.”

She offered some ideas of how to handle the fact that the “titular leader of the country — the sort of father of the country — won’t unite the family, and doesn’t have any interest in doing it.”

Reid’s advice: “All that everyone can do right now is try to get back to your fundamental values. Your own family, your own personal values and live those values yourself. Don’t expect that from the president of the United States. Don’t put that on him, you have to do it yourself.”

Reid expressed concern over the prominence of Trump hotels and buildings across the globe.

“All over the country, all over the world, in the Middle East, in unstable regions, that name plastered on buildings becomes a national security threat,” Reid said. “That may provoke our military to have defend Trump properties around the world. I wouldn’t want my son or daughter, if they were in the military, doing that.”

Reid concluded, “Donald Trump is a national security emergency waiting to happen. His Twitter use, his lack of disciple and his unknown, undisclosed foreign business entanglements are a danger to the country.”

Dan Rather’s America airs Tuesdays at 10 a.m. ET on Radio Andy (Ch. 102)

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