Out MSNBC host Rachel Maddow laughed at complaints from white supremacists about their upcoming trial for inciting violence in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Maddow also mocked the white, straight, cisgender men at their choice to represent themselves after their lawyers quit the case, saying “couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch.”
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Neo-Nazi Richard Spencer, one of the main instigators of the racist riot, has complained that the trial has taken “a toll” on him, in a piece for USA Today.
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“Along with the constant stress,” he whined, “the lawsuit cost thousands of dollars to defend.”
Unable to pay a private lawyer, Spencer was left with two options: let the court appoint a public defender at no cost to himself or represent himself. He chose the latter.
“You say he’s representing himself?” asked Maddow. “Serving as his own lawyer? You don’t say. Whatever else has happened in your life today, I bequeath you this, little warm fuzziness, the Nazis are representing themselves in court, acting as their own lawyers. That always works out great. Good for them. Couldn’t have happened to a nicer bunch.”
But Spencer isn’t the only defendant who has chosen to argue his own case. Another white supremacist’s lawyers quit after he started screaming anti-Semitic slurs at one of the opposing team’s lawyers.
The organizers of the “Unite the Right” rally are on trial for a conspiracy to engage in racially motivated violence. The rally ended in a riot and the death of Heather Heyer, a counter-protester, when a neo-Nazi ran his car into a crowd of people. Nineteen other people were injured.
Jury selection has begun. The trial is expected to last until November 19.
