CNN host calls BS on Jeffrey Lord for comparing Trump's Mexico visit to 'Nixon going to China'

CNN contributor Jeffrey Lord on Wednesday praised Donald Trump for going to Mexico, comparing it to President Nixon's historic trip to China.

Historians have said that Nixon's 1972 trip to China is in the same league with the greatest presidential accomplishments like President John F. Kennedy's response to the Cuban Missile Crisis and Abraham Lincoln's leadership during the Civil War.

And on Wednesday, Lord claimed Trump's meeting with Mexico President Enrique Peña Nieto should be added to the pantheon of presidential accomplishments.

"One of the things that crossed my mind was Richard Nixon going to China," Lord opined. "Where you have a president in that case that was a hardline anti-communist and yet he opened the doors for real change with China."

"But President Nixon didn't talk about China in quite the terms that Donald Trump has talked Mexico," CNN host Carol Costello pointed out. "He didn't say that China was sending its criminals in the United States."

"What Donald Trump is talking about is enforcing our immigration laws, building a wall," Lord replied. "Our country is 100 percent composed of the descendants of immigrants, everybody here has a connection to immigrants. So, it's not about being anti-immigrant."

Lord, however, never explained how Trump's insults -- such as calling Mexicans rapists -- could be compared to Nixon's stand against communism.

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast Aug. 31, 2016.