As the news focused on President Donald Trump's trip to Saudi Arabia and the speech he plans to give on Islam, CNN's Jake Tapper focused on another part of the president's itinerary -- that country star Toby Keith was performing for a "men's only crowd" at the summit in Riyadh.
"I mean, are we supposed to, as Americans, just sit back and look at this and say, sure, just half the population is not allowed because this extreme version of Islam says that men and women cannot co-mingle and, therefore, women cannot attend this music concert?" Tapper mused. "It is just very 11th century."
"That is just rampant discrimination against half the population," Tapper said as he noted that women would not be allowed at the concert due to the country's strict religious gender segregation.
Rep. Adam Kinziger (R-IL) rebutted that despite the apparent gap between men and women in Saudi Arabia and the human rights issues that contains, the country does have "a deputy crown prince who has a very aggressive agenda for social change, which is pretty serious." Those changes include massive strides towards women's equality, though the pacing looks different to Americans.
"These are the kind of alliances we never would have imagined to confront these challenges. Let's do that while mentioning the fact that an all men's concert is stupid," Kinziger said.
"Maybe that's where we are," Tapper agreed, "we have to make a list of priorities and if Toby Keith giving an all-male concert isn't even Top 100 on that list then we just move on."
Watch the entire segment below via CNN.
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