This is it. This is peak 2016.
A Donald Trump surrogate on CNN talking about something called a “mazel tov cocktail” in a Jay Z music video is the logical conclusion of everything peculiar and terrible about this US presidential election.
Last week, Jay Z and Beyonce performed at a rally for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton in Cleveland, Ohio. Trump and his team then launched what appeared to be a coordinated attack on the famous married music stars, taking issue with the lyrics in their songs.
“Jay Z and Beyonce used the most filthy language you’ve ever heard,” Trump, who once boasted of grabbing women “by the pussy,” said at a rally in response to Clinton’s star-studded concert. “They used words that nobody would use.”
Trump’s campaign manager Kellyanne Conway was deeply offended as well, and alluded to one of Clinton’s campaign commercials that shows children watching Trump saying vile things.
But the moment of peak outrage was yet to come.
Scottie Nell Hughes, a political commentator who frequently appears on cable television in support of the Republican nominee, was positively miffed by Clinton associating herself with Jay Z, a hip hop artist who incorporates expletives into his songs.
“As an Evangelical Christian, I can actually say I think he was more bothered by the multiple uses of the ‘M-F-word’ that night and the N-word that was used, within the lyrics in the songs,” Hughes said, apparently unaware that Trump himself has publicly used the “M-F-word” (video).
Hughes then pointed out that in one of Jay Z’s music videos, people throw “mazel tov cocktails” at the police.
She meant molotov cocktails.
CNN host Don Lemon quickly corrected her. Hughes was most certainly referring to the music video for “No Church in the Wild,” the Grammy-winning song by Jay Z and Kanye West (video).
A day after the concert for Clinton, musician and outspoken conservative Ted Nugent rallied for Trump. In his speech, Nugent used several profanities and even grabbed his crotch. “I got your blue state right here, baby,” he said. On Nugent’s behavior, Trump, Conway, and Hughes were silent.
This was the second time in a month that Trump’s camp tried picking a fight with Jay Z and Beyonce. The Republican nominee for president and his surrogates have long expressed outrage at certain things in American pop culture—namely hip hop lyrics and imagery—that they see as offensive.
You’d think that a candidate whose appeal is largely founded on his aversion to political correctness wouldn’t be so easily offended. But that would presume a degree of logical consistency that the candidate has yet to demonstrate in public or private life.