MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow on Wednesday broke down the way in which former president and current GOP candidate Donald Trump often puts his own gross spin on the tactic that’s been deployed by countless politicians over the years of “changing the subject when they need to.”

Maddow, talking on Stephen Colbert’s “Late Show” about why Trump continues to push the debunked claim that Haitian migrants are eating people’s pets in Springfield, Ohio, noted how “all politicians, good guys and bad guys, they know how to change the subject.”

“If they’re a little spicier or a little saucier, maybe they’ll start a new fake controversy, pick a fight or something,” she continued.

But Trump “doesn’t just do that like a normal politician” to simply distract people, she said.

Trump “picks something new to disgust us, to offend us, he does something abusive and damaging,” explained Maddow. “And that calls on us not to just be distracted, that’s a normal political tactic. No, when Trump does it, because he’s abusive and repulsive and hurtful, it calls on our conscience and demands that we not sit their silently and refuse to object. It calls on us to stand up and say ‘No.’”

Watch from the 2:30 mark here: