A couple of weeks ago, Stacey Dash, an embarrassment, announced that, after a long and storied career of starring in a movie from 1995, serving as a Fox talking head, and of course becoming the mayor of Chicago (in the film Sharknado 4), she would be running for Congress. Dash, a Republican, is running in California’s 44th district (which includes Compton, San Pedro, and North Long Beach). It’s an extremely Democratic district (over 80% of people in the 44th voted for Hillary Clinton), but who’s to say Dash can’t change that?
Last night, Dash appeared on MSNBC for her very first interview as a candidate, and it was equal parts entertaining and very troubling. After being introduced as the star of such things as movies, a “much-discussed Oscar cameo,” and Kanye West’s “All Falls Down” video, Ari Melber asked Dash some pretty basic questions about undocumented people, insurance, gun control, and neo-Nazis. And she spectacularly failed in each category. But the best part was that last one, which came when she was asked if she stood by Trump’s infamous response to the white supremacist riots and murder in Charlottesville.
Dash managed to say that “hate is not the answer,” but when Melber pushed her on whether she co-signed on Trump’s specific statement that there were “very fine people on both sides,” this is what she said:
I’m not here to judge. The one who can judge is God. Do I know if everyone person in the neo-Nazi party? If they have a good heart or not? No I don’t. Do I know every member of a gang, if they have a good heart or not? No I don’t. Do I know every heart of a man in prison, if he has a good heart or not? No I don’t. I’m not here to judge.
Stacey Dash is not here to judge white supremacists. That should play really well in the overwhelmingly Latinx and black district she’s running in!
The rest of the interview was also insane. When asked about sanctuary cities in California and protecting undocumented workers, Dash said, “I think that we have to respect law enforcement, we have to respect laws.” When Melber asked her, “Go on,” she said, “Well that’s it.”
Oh.
Dash also said Obamacare should be fully repealed but didn’t even have a whiff of a suggestion for what could replace it. When it came to gun control, she said she supported the Bill of Rights but doesn’t like the “tragedies that are occurring in our country.” Cool. In a nearly eight-minute interview, Dash spoke for around two minutes, giving short and curt answers completely void of personality or passion.
Then, stunningly, at the end of the interview, Melber slyly proceeded to ask Dash about her film preferences. More specifically he asked, if she was a “Clueless person” or a “Legally Blonde” person, and OH MY GOD SHE ACTUALLY TOOK THE BAIT. STACEY DASH LITERALLY SAID, “I’M A CLUELESS PERSON” ON NATIONAL TELEVISION. A true victory for video mashup artists everywhere, and also probably for Dash’s opponents.