Former Obama administration consultant Van Jones and Republican strategist Jeffrey Lord nearly came to blows on CNN's Super Tuesday coverage tonight.
The pair were arguing about Donald Trump's recent statements about David Duke and his affiliation with the KKK. "Here's a guy who disavowed this many, many, many times," Lord said. "You hear this statement from Mitt Romney and Paul Ryan today. I like Paul Ryan. We both worked for Jack Kemp."
However, Lord added that "Jack Kemp would be appalled at this. I hate to say this about the Republican establishment but their view of civil rights is to tip the black waiter five bucks at the country club. This is atrocious. This is atrocious. This is why Donald Trump has the ability -- because he's not going to patronize people."
Jones shot back that it's not as if it's just this statement that Trump made that's offensive. "The things that Donald Trump has done and not just in this race are horribly offensive. You can go back with this guy for a long time -- I want to talk. I want to talk. Because this is important. You can go back to the central jogger case where he came out and had innocent black kids winding up in prison."
"No," Lord replied, "innocent kids."
"Hold on a second," Jones said. "Innocent black kids."
"We have a big problem at this point now, because I agree with you about a lot. I think we have taken him not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here and S.E. is right. He is whipping up and tapping into and pushing buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan."
"That is not cool," he severely understated.
Watch the entire exchange below via Media Matters.
Shares