News broke late Tuesday evening that a car had crashed into the lobby of a Trump-branded luxury apartment building in NYC suburb New Rochelle. Given the piqued animus towards political figures and the very troubling trend of weaponized cars, the report raised immediate questions about the event that reportedly left many with minor injuries.

The need to learn specifics behind this unfortunate event, however, did not keep some from irresponsible speculation, or even in one case, the awful public fantasy of driving his own car into the Trump plaza lobby.

Such was the case with Elie Mystal, who is the executive editor of the Above the Law blog, a contributor to The Nation, and appears regularly as a panelist on many MSNBC shows. In a string of tweets published early Wednesday morning, Mystal framed his “real talk” of admitting that he has thought about driving his own car through the Trump Plaza lobby “EVERY TIME,” before admitting that “Basic humanity” keeps him from doing it.

Mystal tweeted:

Real talk: When you come out of the parking lot of this mall/movie theater, you have to sit a red light staring right into this lobby.

I’ve thought about driving my car through it EVERY TIME. Basic humanity keeps me from doing it, but JUST.https://t.co/bvImuODvDG — Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) September 18, 2019

The view in this picture is exactly the view you have from the stop light.

It’s a long light. You have a lot of time to… think. — Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) September 18, 2019

Anyway, innocent until proven guilty but… “accident” doesn’t seem likely to me. Maybe that’s my own bias. Defense counsel should NOT put me on this guy’s jury, I know too much :). — Elie Mystal (@ElieNYC) September 18, 2019

There is no evidence of any political animus fueling what has been widely reported as an accident. The New York Times reports:

The police were still investigating what led the driver to crash into the building around 8:40 p.m., but it did not appear to be intentional, said Sgt. Chris Castiglia of the New Rochelle Police Department. The police said the injuries were minor.

But this didn’t keep Mystal offering a conspiracy theory that it being an “accident” didn’t seem likely to him. The most charitable explanation for Mystal’s admission is that he was “joking,” but the admission of regularly thinking of running his car into the lobby of an apartment building is not only not funny, but it’s really pretty gross.

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