During a panel discussion on Chris Hayes' show, Republican pundit Katie Packer provided a Friday night jaw-dropper.
The topic was a discussion about whether Democrats were really responsible for inner city problems and poverty in the Black community.
Rick Perlstein more or less laid that question to rest when he emphatically stated, "It's something the Republican Party has to answer for.
"Detroit basically won World War II for the United States of America, saved us from fascism and Hitler, saved the world from fascism and Hitler," he continued. "And its reward was the White people fled the city after African Americans were invited to work in the factories. They put up a wall --"
At that point, Packer objected, asserting, "I'm speaking specifically to the city of Detroit, where the Black mayor asked White people to leave at that time."
Chris Hayes was incredulous. "Honestly?! That's your argument for where the White people left the city of Detroit?," he asked.
"Chris, this argument is not worth your respect," Perlstein interjected.
There was more back and forth between Hayes and Packer, but the point had been made, rather forcefully.
From there, the discussion moved on to strategy and tactics on the part of Hillary Clinton, and whether or not it was a good idea to isolate Trump as opposed to hanging him on all the Republicans up for office.
The full transcript of that portion of the discussion is below.
HAYES: Rick, what do you think about the tactical decision of Hillary Clinton to cleave Donald Trump off from the Republican Party that has had its own issues with racial dog whistles for decades?
PERLSTEIN: I think it's disappointing. basically strategically. Politics is a team sport. She's running on a ticket. I think of one of the e-mails fleshed out from the WikiLeaks, from March of 2016, so this has been a long time coming, from Louis Miranda, complaining that their instructions were to separate trump from the Ryan wing, to say that trump was crazy and not normal, and Ryan was normal. and that to connect them makes trump look normal. and Miranda was complaining that they couldn't run congressional campaigns this way. when Hillary Clinton says that Paul Ryan is a social justice conservative and all these other Republicans -- which I guess would include Trey Gowdy and I guess would include Louis Gohmert and the people who said she killed Vince foster, right? Now she's saying that Trump has turned the party over to paranoia. If she's saying the rest of the party is okay, then it makes it very hard to tell a story to the American people that the problem is conservatism, that the problem is the Republican Party. As if she imagines going to Washington to govern, with Paul Ryan as a partner, but Paul Ryan sees Democrats very differently.
HAYES: I thought the DNC exchange Rick was talking about was fascinating. because there are dual incentives. because what you want to do is, you don't have the gift of a Donald Trump. what you want to do is tie your candidate to Donald Trump, if he's Rob Portman or Pat Toomey, or if you're in a contested House seat. Whereas Hillary Clinton does have the gift of Donald Trump and maybe it's easier for her just to not lift that stone.
PACKER: I do think it's a smart strategy for a Presidential candidate. It does kind of sell her down-ballot candidates down the river. But the same thing's happening on the Republican side in the reverse. That there are a lot of people that down-ballot candidates sort of leave the Presidential candidate on the curb. So it's sort of the reverse thing happening on both sides.
There were some pretty rapid responses to her claims about Detroit on Twitter.
I imagine we will be seeing more on this topic from Chris Hayes in the future.
