‘Racist’: CNN Analyst Slams Opponents of Birthright Citizenship

CNN legal analyst and former federal prosecutor Shan Wu argued that those who question the birthright citizenship clause of the 14th Amendment are pushing a “racist viewpoint” on Wednesday.

Wu made the claim during an appearance on CNN This Morning  right before the Supreme Court started listening to oral arguments over the issue.

President Donald Trump has criticized birthright citizenship a number of times, including on Tuesday, when he called it one of the “great scams” in American history. The president has argued the 14th Amendment was passed after the Civil War to grant citizenship to former slaves, but is now being exploited by rich foreigners who travel to the U.S. to give birth.

Wu said that belief is not only wrong, it’s racist.

“The very creation of the 14th Amendment was meant to combat racism, and really implicitly people who are challenging that clause are really espousing a racist viewpoint,” Wu said. “It’s very hard to get around that, no matter what sort of legal arguments you want to couch.”

He added, “Just because you have legal argument doesn’t mean it’s not racist.”

Wu shared his opinion right after CNN played a clip of Claremont Institute senior fellow John Eastman, the Trump-ally who has been a key figure in shaping the president’s mission to end birthright citizenship.

Here is what Eastman said about the matter in the clip:

The 14th Amendment says you got to be born here, that’s requirement one. But you got to be “subject to the jurisdiction” here as well and reside in a state — that means temporary visitors and certainly those who are here illegally are not covered by the automatic citizenship of the citizenship clause.

And that was the way we understood it for about a century. It kind of gradually beginning in the 1950s or ’60s, we moved away from that position.

Wu said that argument was “pretty unsound” when guest host Erica Hill asked for his reaction.

“If you were to take his argument, for example, you could extrapolate that children of Confederate soldiers should not be citizens, because they were not under the jurisdiction of the U.S., they were challenging that,” Wu said. “So it really doesn’t make much sense at all what he’s saying.”

Watch above via CNN.

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