Peter Navarro Dodges on Trump’s Confederate Flag Support and Refusal to Wear a Mask in Tough Grilling From CNN’s John Berman

White House trade adviser Peter Navarro evaded a host of questions Monday morning during a heated back-and-forth on CNN.

In a contentious 13-minute interview with CNN’s John Berman on New Day, Navarro avoided engaging on a variety of subjects ranging from President Donald Trump’s refusal to wear a mask, and his opposition to a ban on the Confederate flag at NASCAR tracks.

From the outset, Navarro was in full ducking mode — as he dodged Berman’s opening question about the rise in coronavirus cases, and instead spoke a new study which showed hydroxychloroquine had some positive effect on Covid-19 mortality rates. After a heated exchange in which Navarro repeatedly made reference to the virus’s origin in China, Berman shifted gears to ask about the president’s position on mask wearing.

“What difference would it make if the president aggressively, visually, supported mask wearing in front of the nation?” Berman asked

“I can’t speculate on that,” Navarro replied. “I think that it’s clear now that the president and the vice president strongly support the use of masks and social distancing. There’s nothing more to squeeze from that orange.”

Berman followed up.

“I’m only asking because you’ve been instrumental in getting n95 masks and masks around the country,” the CNN anchor said. “You obviously think masks are important. Would it help if the president did more?”

“You guys beat that one to death and I’m not going to get involved in that,” Navarro said. He added, “It’s a meme for CNN now. ‘Oh, the president didn’t wear a mask!’ … What’s the point? Everyone who gets near him has been tested and nobody gets within six feet of him.”

“I’m just asking if a White House effort to emphasize the importance of mask wearing would make a difference,” said Berman

“And you can keep asking, and I’m not going to go there,” Navarro said.

After a brief detour to renew the hydroxychloroquine debate (“Give peace a chance, and give hydroxy a chance,” Navarro said, at one point), Berman pivoted to the president’s Monday tweet attacking NASCAR and Bubba Wallace. The CNN anchor noted that White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany refused to address the administration’s position on Confederate flags flying at NASCAR races.

“Do you understand the White House’s position?” Berman asked Navarro.

Once again, Navarro was not inclined to engage.

“It’s not my lane, John,” he said. “I’m here to save lives, create jobs. I’m not the press secretary. I’m really not. I’m not a surrogate. Not going there.”

“You don’t want to condemn the Confederate flag?” Berman said. “You don’t have feelings about the Confederate flag?”

“Let me tell you a personal story, if I may,” Navarro said. “My awakening on the race issue was when I was 8 years old in a Woolworth’s store in West Palm Beach, Florida, when I walked over and I took a drink from the colored water fountain because I wanted to see colored water. And this woman came up to me and just gently said, ‘You can’t drink from that.’ I go, ‘Why?’ She says, ‘That’s for colored people.’ I’m 8 years old and that didn’t make sense to me. I’m a Californian, we don’t see race out there.”

The conversation came to a chaotic conclusion from there — with Navarro taking a shot at “cancel culture,” and stating “Why is it that more black people died in Chicago from gunshots than the China virus over the weekend?”

Watch above, via CNN.