Kaitlan Collins Grills Republican Senator on Whether It’s ‘Defensible’ for Trump to Suggest Kamala Harris Isn’t Black – He Says ‘Of Course’
CNN’s Kaitlan Collins went several rounds with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) hours after former President Donald Trump falsely claimed Vice President Kamala Harris “happened to turn Black.”
“I didn’t know she was Black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn Black,” Trump said at a convention of the National Association of Black Journalists on Wednesday. “And now she wants to be known as Black. So, I don’t know, is she Indian or is she Black?”
He added, “And then all of a sudden, she made a turn and she became a Black person.”
The bizarre and wrong comments sparked a firestorm, but some conservatives nonetheless tried to rush to Trump’s defense.
One of them was Cotton, who appeared on CNN’s The Source where he was immediately asked about the former president’s remarks.
“In your view, are those comments defensible, Senator?” she asked.
“Kaitlan, of course,” he said without hesitating. “First off, it’s refreshing to see a presidential candidate who’s willing to go in front of the media, something that Donald Trump knew would be a tough interview. It turned out to be a hostile, adversarial interview, but he’s been doing that for nine years. Kamala Harris, meanwhile, has been hiding out for the 10 days that she’s been a precedent nominee.”
Cotton went on to call Harris a “San Francisco liberal” due to her time as the city’s district attorney and slammed her record. The senator also criticized the vice president for not granting any interviews since becoming the presumptive Democratic nominee less than two weeks ago.
“Yeah, I didn’t hear Donald Trump bring up any of her policy positions today or stances when he was on that stage,” Collins shot back.” But your argument is that just because she hasn’t done an interview since she became the top of the ticket, that it’s ok to question what her race is?”
Cotton dodged and insisted Trump spoke about Harris’s policies.
“Kaitlan, if you didn’t hear Donald Trump talking about her positions and his record, then you didn’t watch the interview,” he replied. “It went on for more than 30 minutes.”
“I did watch the interview, Senator,” she protested.
“The vast majority of it, Kaitlan was Donald Trump talking about his record, contrasting it to the Biden-Harris record of higher inflation and wide-open borders and war and chaos around the world,” he said.
Collins proceeded to have another go at getting Cotton to answer.
“We have talked about her past positions and the reversals of those,” she said. “And we’ve delved into all of that. That’s actually what voters care about. But when your party’s nominee is on stage telling a panel of three Black women that the first Black woman to serve as vice president hasn’t always identified as Black, how does that help your party win elections?”
The senator dodged the question again, saying, “Donald Trump said that what matters is that she identifies as a dangerous San Francisco liberal. It’s not what race she identifies as.”
“He solely focused on race in that comment, Senator,” the host interrupted.
Cotton deflected responded by deflecting again.
Watch above via CNN.
