Cuomo Slams Haley's 'Capitulation' to Trump's Embrace of 'Bigotry'

CNN's Chris Cuomo devoted his closing argument Friday to trashing Nikki Haley for claiming in an interview with The Blaze that white supremacist Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof "hijacked everything that people thought of" in terms of "sacrifice and service and heritage" by "holding the Confederate flag" as he committed the murders. After playing a clip of the interview, Cuomo scolded Haley: "Service, sacrifice, and heritage? Service to slavery, the sacrifice of the slaves, and the heritage of slavery. Haley knows one murderer didn't co-opt that flag. He used it for what it is, like every other bigot and white extremist." Cuomo proceeded to play a clip of Haley back in 2015 claiming the flag "never should have been" displayed at the South Carolina Capitol before asking "why pump up this flag?" Cuomo attempted to answer his question by asking rhetorical questions: "Is she falling in line with this Trumpy forgetfulness of what bigotry is, the malignancy of it? Is she trying to curry favor with certain voters like the leader of her party does?" Cuomo spent the rest of the monologue smearing Trump as a racist for calling himself a "nationalist," calling for a moratorium on Muslim immigration, and claiming that some Mexican immigrants are "bringing drugs" across the border. The CNN host asked "Is this what Nikki Haley wants to be? Talk like bigotry is benign, nationalism is patriotism, xenophobia is just common-sense suspicion of an entire faith?" As the monologue came to a close, Cuomo expressed outrage about Haley's "capitulation" to Trump and pleaded with the former South Carolina Governor and UN Ambassador: "Nikki Haley, please. Tell us you didn't mean it. Tell us that you haven't surrendered the truth for some Trumpy notion of popularity."