CNN Panel on Trump’s Demagoguery Goes Off the Rails: ‘The White Nationalists Will Never Love You’

CNN went wild on Monday night when former Trump adviser Steve Cortes and New York Times columnist Wajahat Ali collided over President Donald Trump’s racist attacks on Congresswomen Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, Rashida Tlaib, and Ayanna Pressley.

Cortes started things off by saying Trump’s tweets – the ones telling the four Democratic women to “go back” where they came from – were “illogical” and “divisive” and he hopes the president retracts or clarifies them. Anderson Cooper pressed Cortes on this front by barraging him with questions on whether Trump’s conduct falls under the literal definition of a demagogue.

“How can you say this is not playing on people’s prejudices about people of color, about going back to your homeland…” Cooper asked.

“Because he didn’t mention color,” Cortes answered.

“So it’s just, you’re saying it’s random he picked four people of color?” Cooper continued.

The two continued to lock horns as Cooper asked for a “straight answer” on Trump’s actions, while Cortes railed against “the demagoguery and prejudice of the Left,” particularly Ali’s “insane” argument that supporting Trump makes one a racist by default.

“To call me, to call tens of millions of Trump supporters racist, to dismiss us, to dehumanize us, and marginalize us, that’s bigotry!

When Ali finally entered the fray, he dissected Trump’s “stupid” slams against “the squad” while presenting his argument that the president is a white nationalist who regularly engages in racial fear-mongering.

“If you’re unwilling to acknowledge and call out racism because calling out racism for being racism makes you racist in this new, warped mindset of Republicans, that makes you complicit,” Ali said. “You might not be a racist, but if you’re fine with endorsing and supporting a racist president, you have to look yourself in the mirror right now in 2019 and ask yourself is it worth it?

From there, the conversation careened off the rails as Cortes blasted “prejudice” and “demagoguery” from the left, while Ali stuck to his argument against Trump’s white nationalism.

“They’ll never love you,” Ali said to Cortes. “The white nationalists will never love you, no matter how hard you try to be the Latin face of Trump, they’ll never love you.”

Watch above, via CNN