Alan Dershowitz Has A Message for The Left

Harvard Law Professor Emeritus Alan Dershowitz joined “Mornings with Maria” to discuss the controversy over President-elect Donald Trump's appointment of Steve Bannon as his Chief Strategist and concerns about the future of the Democratic Party.

Dershowitz first weighed in on accusations that Steve Bannon is anti-Semitic.

“He is not an anti-Semite and I think it’s very important not to throw that term around,” Dershowitz told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo.

But Dershowitz did have misgivings over reports Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) is being considered for Chair of the Democratic National Committee.

“But we all have to think carefully, and study carefully, records of people like Bannon and also people like Keith Ellison who are now being proposed for head of the DNC. And I think we have to look very hard at this man’s record, this man has a very, very mixed record. He’s had to apologize over and over again for his connections with Farrakhan, with other extremists.”

Dershowitz viewed the potential Ellison appointment as an example of broader concerns over the direction the Democratic Party is headed.

“I also think the Democrats are making a terrible mistake in how they reacted to this election. They are moving hard left. That’s not the way to win elections,” he said.

Dershowitz sees a shift to the center as a better political move for the party in the long-term.

“It is an invitation to disaster in the next elections,” he explained. “The Democrats have to move more to the center, they have to pick up votes wherever they lost votes, but to move ideologically to the hard left and Ellison is a hard, hard left appointment is a serious, serious mistake.”

According to Dershowitz, the Democratic Party could actually get pointers from Trump’s playbook.

“I think the Democrats don’t understand that there’s a difference between the ideological left-left and addressing the serious economic concerns which is social welfare,” Dershowitz continued. “I think the one thing that Trump is doing a great job on is building infrastructure, building bridges, that employs people, that makes people in the center understand that we see progress.  The Democrats have to be moving in that direction.”