CNN Personalities Slam Trump as Racist Over Exchange With Weijia Jiang

Ryan Foley | May 12, 2020
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CNN personalities on three different shows in the past 24 hours have all accused President Trump of racism for telling Chinese-American CBS White House Correspondent Weijia Jiang to “ask China” her question about why he sees the battle to contain Coronavirus as a “global competition.” Just minutes after the exchange, CNN media critic Brian Stelter declared “it is racist to look at an Asian-American White House Correspondent and say, ‘ask China.’” Stelter alleged that “this is part of a pattern of behavior from the President that goes back many years,” proclaiming that “the President routinely targets reporters who are women and people of color…As much as we are competitive in the press corps, I think it’s important we show solidarity in moments like this and call out racial kind of reactions from the President.” On CNN Tonight, host Don Lemon played an older clip of Trump asking Jiang “who are you with?” Lemon insinuated that Trump was really asking her “where are you from?” On New Day Tuesday morning, former White House Press Secretary Joe Lockhart did not hesitate to call Trump a racist: “I think the President felt a little bit threatened by the question. He does have problems with...taking questions when he’s challenged by women, particularly women of color…All he saw there was an Asian, not an Asian-American. And someone who...represented China and he lashed out at her in a way that I believe…was openly racist.” Lockhart also referred to the comment as a “low moment in his presidency” where “we got a window into his character.”

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