Media top headlines September 2
In media news today, Chris Hayes downplays Biden's phone call with ex-Afghanistan president Ghani, ex-CBS anchor Dan Rather gets crushed for tweet comparing pro-lifers to the Taliban, and an MSNBC analyst likens the Texas abortion law to slavery
MSNBC host Joy Reid promoted a guest Wednesday who labeled Texas pro-life supporters as the "American Taliban."
The "ReidOut" host invited author Frank Schaeffer, the son of the late evangelical Francis Schaeffer, to discuss the Texas Heartbeat Act, the law restricting nearly all abortions in the state which went into effect on Wednesday. Schaeffer went on a long rant against supporters of the law, calling them anti-woman and even labeling them as "bio-terrorists."
"We have a situation in Texas right now tonight where the American Taliban, because that’s what it is, there’s not an American evangelical right-wing movement, there is an American Taliban that is weirdly similar in so many ways to the Middle Eastern Islamist terrorists," Schaeffer said.
He continued, "Today, there is no evangelical political movement. There is a new American Taliban and their goal is theocracy which means to take our religious beliefs, which for them are Old Testament Law, not Christianity, and force secular Americans, non-evangelical Americans, progressive Americans, women, people of color, into that box."
"And this is not hyperbole. This is happening right now tonight in Texas," Schaffer said.
Schaeffer also claimed pro-life voters were akin to "bio-terrorists," alleging that pro-lifers are solely against COVID-19 vaccinations due to opposition of President Joe Biden.
The Twitter account for Reid's show promoted Schaeffer's comments.
Reid has expressed her own displeasure with the Texas law in a barrage of tweets. Shortly after the law went into effect, the far-left MSNBC host compared living in Texas to the fictional dystopian world in "The Handmaid’s Tale."
Schaeffer's "American Taliban" comments echoed a talking point that trended on Twitter early Wednesday with several other liberals making comparisons between pro-life supporters and the Taliban.
The Texas State Capitol in Austin. (Texas Legislature )
Far-left activist Bree Newsome tweeted, "Western Christianity was oppressing women centuries before the Taliban existed. So is America’s right wing the ‘American Taliban’? Or is the Taliban the ‘Afghan Right’?"
"The Taliban would love the Texas abortion law," author Stephen King tweeted.
Former CBS anchor Dan Rather, a native Texan, wrote that pro-lifers were "eager to control women's bodies and choices in the United States" in an implicit comparison to the Islamic fundamentalist group.
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The Texas Heartbeat Act was signed into law by Republican Gov. Greg Abbott in May. The law prohibits abortions after six weeks when a fetal heartbeat can be detected and gives individuals the right to sue abortion clinics or individuals helping women to obtain illegal abortions in the state.