'Intent matters': CNN anchor squabbles with ex-campaign manager about Trump's birther past
May 23, 2024
CNN anchor Boris Sanchez clashed with Bryan Lanza, former deputy communications chief for the Trump 2016 campaign, over the former president's record on race relations during a segment on Thursday.
The exchange came as Trump, who has faced geographic constraints on where he can rally due to the ongoing criminal trial in Manhattan, prepared to host a rally in The Bronx to connect with Black and Hispanic voters.
"Ahead of Donald Trump's rally, the Biden campaign has been running ads hitting Trump for comments that he's made in the past, specifically about Black Americans," said Sanchez. "The Trump campaign is calling these ads a cheap attempt to gaslight Black voters. Are some of those past comments that Democrats are highlighting, specifically about the Central Park Five, the rally in Charlottesville, and others — do you see those as a problem for Trump, as he tries to court African-Americans?"
"You know, I don't think it's a problem for Trump, just like Joe Biden's previous statements about the African-American community aren't a problem for him, and his statements have been pretty outrageous," said Lanza. "It's really more egregious than anything that President Trump has ever said about the African-American community."
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"Really?" said Sanchez incredulously.
"Do you wanna go back to those, Boris, and review them?" said Lanza. "I might be embarrassed to read them to my mom, and you should be too."
He went on to say that Trump is making inroads with Black voters "because the community is suffering tremendously under Joe Biden ... it has nothing to do with what was said in the past, but it has to do what the future looks like."
(Data show Black unemployment has been lower than at any point during the Trump administration.)
"I certainly remember the way that each of them treated the first African-American president, and questions about a phantom birth certificate from some other country that never existed," said Sanchez, referencing Trump's prominent role in advancing the "Birther" conspiracy theory against former President Barack Obama.
"I remember Joe Biden using the N-word on the floor before," said Lanza, referencing a 1985 Senate hearing in which Biden was quoting a segregationist's own words at him to highlight his unfitness for a nomination to the Justice Department.
"So it'd be — we have to be careful with how we're going to do comparisons. I've never heard Trump, President Trump use the N-word, whereas Joe Biden—"
"I do think an intent matters, certainly," Sanchez said simply.
Reports show Trump's niece Mary has said she's heard her uncle use the n-word and other racist language.
"Of course I did,” Mary Trump told Rachel Maddow in 2020. “And I don’t think that should surprise anybody given how virulently racist he is today.”
Trump denied her statement.
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