CNN's Chris Cuomo slaps down White House press aide: Focus on white supremacists if you're worried about terrorism

While interviewing White House deputy press secretary Raj Shah, CNN's Chris Cuomo blasted the aide and the administration he serves for focusing on violence committed by people born outside the United States when the deadliest perpetrators are white supremacists.

"You're cherry picking cases to create a general rule," Cuomo told Shah as the White House aide brought up the Lower Manhattan terrorist attack by a Uzbek Muslim that killed eight people in October 2017.

"We're making a serious point that illegality does not breed safety," Shah retorted, bringing up the murder of Kate Steinle, a white woman killed by an undocumented immigrant who was later acquitted — a popular right-wing talking point that's led to anti-Latino harassment. 

Cuomo, however, wasn't having it.

"What you do with the rhetoric is you try to paint a picture about these people that is inaccurate," the host said. 

"If you were really worried about who's killing people in the name of terror in this country, you'd be focused on white supremacists. That's your biggest threat," Cuomo retorted. "Ask the intel community — they'll tell you the same thing."

Cuomo's comments came just a day after the Justice Department released a joint report with the Department of Homeland Security that appeared to skew terrorism statistics to inaccurately portray most acts of terrorism on US soil as committed by people born outside the country. The DOJ/DHS report was followed by a study released by the Anti-Defamation League that found in 2017, white supremacists killed more people than members of any other extremist groups, and that the number of white supremacist murders rose more than 150 percent since 2016.

Watch Cuomo take down Shah below, via CNN: