'You're ok with racism in your party?' Republican pressed on CNN in tense exchange

A MAGA Republican operative got testy with a culture critic Friday night on CNN when asked if he was ok with racism in the GOP.

The exchange happened during a discussion over Vice President J.D. Vance and President Donald Trump supporting the rehiring of a 25-year-old staffer in the Department of Government Efficiency, or DOGE, who resigned after racist posts came to light this week.

Marko Elez, who worked for Elon Musk-owned companies SpaceX, Starlink and X before signing on for a role at DOGE, resigned Thursday over questions about his ties to a social media account that promoted "racism and eugenics," according to the Wall Street Journal.

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“You could not pay me to marry outside of my ethnicity,” the account wrote on X in September. “Normalize Indian hate,” the account wrote the same month, in reference to a post "noting the prevalence of people from India in Silicon Valley."

Another post from the user in December appeared to show a particular dislike for Indian software engineers: “99% of Indian H1Bs will be replaced by slightly smarter LLMs, they’re going back don’t worry guys”

“Just for the record, I was racist before it was cool,” the account wrote in a separate post.

Culture critic Touré lamented to panelists that in a world where diversity programs and critical race theory are "under attack," "we're protecting white supremacists and racists. And attacking Black and brown people who want to be part of the fabric of the country."

Democratic strategist Jenna Arnold chimed in that this is the Trump administration's "signal" to voters that such things will "slide" now.

"You can't be canceled anymore," she asserted, adding that an apology from the ousted staffer "would not suffice."

"This is a moral character bedrock of somebody's perspective of the world," she continued. "I don't care what you got on your grades at Stanford."

She got immediate pushback from Republican strategist Lance Trover, who shot back, "So what, he's banished off into the desert for eternity? Like wreck his life. Wreck his career. Send him off into —"

His flippant retort didn't sit well with Touré, who pushed back, "So you're ok with racism in you're party?"

"Hold on man, let me finish. That is not what I said so don't even go there. Absolutely not. I think it's abhorrent what he said. I frankly agree — if he's going to acknowledge what he said was wrong and apologize for it, we are a compassionate people," said Trover.

Later in the discussion, Touré continued arguing against the staffer.

"This individual works in government. When I go to my government and ask them for something, for help, do I need to worry that the person on the other end of the email or phone is racist? Actually hatest me? Has been online saying we thnk you should be whatever, deported, or whatever? He should apologize. I mean, that's at a minimum."

On this, Trover agreed.

"Absolutely. I'm not arguing that. I completely agree with that," he said.

Watch the clip below or at this link.