‘Stoking a Race War’: Jemele Hill Slams Trump Attack on Bubba Wallace, Support for Confederate Flag

Vice TV host Jemele Hill tore into President Donald Trump over his recent attack on NASCAR driver Bubba Wallace and his expression of support for the Confederate flag, telling MSNBC’s Andrea Mitchell that Trump is “stoking a race war” to distract from his own failures.

On Tuesday’s edition of Andrea Mitchell Reports, Mitchell began by asking Hill about Trump’s recent tweet criticizing Cleveland and Washington sports teams for considering changing their names.

Hill told Mitchell that Trump is using a trusted playbook.

“When in doubt he tries to stoke and provoke the most racial tension possible,” Hill said, then brought up Trump’s recent attack on Wallace.

“He has now sicced his base on Bubba Wallace, who did nothing wrong,” Hill said. “Bubba Wallace, who did not even report that there was a noose found in his garage and was told by a NASCAR official. They investigated it, they found he was not the target of a hate crime, and what exactly is he apologizing for?”

She called Trump’s attack on Wallace “repulsive.”

Later in the interview, Mitchell played a clip of White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany being grilled about Trump’s defense of the Confederate flag.

“I never thought I’d hear a president of the United States defend the Confederate flag,” Mitchell said as she introduced the clip, in which McEnany tried to deny Trump had said what he’d said.

“The president is a liar. We’ve known this for some time now, and it is no surprise that the press secretary is often covering, if not expanding, the lies that he tells while telling her own lies,” Hill said of McEnany.

“What you have here is a very obvious and direct attack by a president who is insecure about his ability to be reelected,” she continued, “so that is why it is much more fashionable, rather than dealing with the fact that you have over 100,000 people dead in this country from the Covid-19, the fact that there’s no comprehensive national plan to deal with this pandemic, he would rather shift attention to what has worked for him so well in the last three or four years, which is provoking division, stoking culture wars, stoking a race war essentially in order to deflect from the fact that he is incompetent and has failed as a leader.”

Hill concluded by saying she was disappointed but not surprised by Trump’s behavior, and that “I just hope as a country we get a lot smarter and understanding the kind of manipulation that he’s running on everybody.”

Watch the clip above via MSNBC.