Wolf Blitzer and SE Cupp Lock Horns Over Haley’s ‘Racist Country’ Remarks: ‘Doesn’t She Remember’ Segregation?
Tensions flared between CNN’s Wolf Blitzer and SE Cupp when the latter defended Nikki Haley’s claim that America has “never been a racist country.”
Cupp joined The Situation Room on Tuesday for a panel discussion about Haley’s insistence to Fox News that “We’re not a racist country. We’ve never been a racist country.” Haley admitted in the very same interview that she has faced racism while growing up, and this comes just weeks after the blowback Haley got for not acknowledging slavery’s relevance to the start of the Civil War.
After Bakari Sellers criticized Haley for glossing over America’s history with racial issues, Cupp hopped into the conversation to cite Haley’s past in dealing with racism.
“But if voters need their presidential candidate to say that America is a racist country, well, they have no one to vote for. Because just a year and a half ago, Joe Biden said the same exact thing,” Cupp said. “I don’t think it’s all that controversial to say of course there’s racism… but maybe America’s not on the whole a racist country, is not all that controversial actually.”
“It’s just more nuanced, SE,” Sellers retorted. That’s when Blitzer turned to American history to question Haley’s claim that the country has “never” been racist.
“Doesn’t she remember all the segregated schools?” He asked. “The movie theaters? The restaurants? All of the segregation that existed? That was pretty racist.”
“Of course,” Cupp countered. “I don’t know how much time she has to give a history lesson every time she’s asked this question. Joe Biden couldn’t do it either. Joe Biden talked about Jim Crow but also said this is not a racist country. I think if we’re applying these standards, we have to apply them fairly.”
Before moving on, Blitzer left things off by saying, “It’s obviously a tremendous improvement over the years, but going back, when she said we’ve never been a racist country, that’s clearly a false statement.”
Watch above via CNN.
