'Stop it!': MSNBC's Hugh Hewitt gets shut down when he tries to make excuses for Cindy Hyde-Smith's racism
Conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt's bizarre commentary on MSNBC continued Sunday as he tried to make excuses for Cindy Hyde-Smith's history of racism.
MSNBC host Rev. Al Sharpton went through the complicated history of the Mississippi Republican, who went to and sent her daughter to a segregated private school. The news is just the latest in a slew of examples of Smith's tendencies and national Republican support for her seems to be faltering.
Sharpton asked Hewitt about the racially charged language, and the conservative maintained Smith is a shoo-in for the Senate seat in Mississippi.
"Mississippi's a red state," he told Sharpton. "The Browns beat the Bengals today and Hyde-Smith is going to beat Rep. Mike Espy by more than ten points. That's because Mississippi is a conservative state. She's a traditional Senate right Republican who began life as a testimony. She spent years as a Democrat and woke up and she's just going to walk in because all of this -- they're attempting to Beto her into a contender, it just doesn't work in Mississippi. Under the circumstances a red state, Al."
Sharpton cut in to remind Hewitt he asked a question about the racially charged language, not the Republican Party.
"You did not address the fact about her comments and the fact she went to a segregated school, that does not immunize her from saying bigoted statements and putting her own child in a segregated school," Sharpton said.
"Add the other part," SiriusXM radio host Joe Madison cut in to say. "So that she wouldn't have to go to school with black children. Matter fact --"
"Well, that's why those schools were founded --" Sharpton said.
"Thank you! In the first place!" echoed Madison.
"They were founded after 1969, Supreme Court said Mississippi had to integrate the schools, they went and found private segregated schools. She was put in by her parents and she did the same to her own child which you'd have to lay at her door," Sharpton said.
Hewitt said that Trump doesn't care because at the end of the day, Trump is a Republican and so is Smith. He went on, trying to claim that Smith is a moderate Republican.
"Hugh, stop it!" Madison exclaimed. "We know what's in her head. We know what's in her heart and it came out of her mouth. The reality is that the state of Mississippi -- and, by the way, I've got a lot of relatives down there and the reality is, Mississippi has to decide, does it want to be the old Mississippi of the 1960s or do they want to join the rest of the world in the 21st century and when you start talking the language of a public hanging, you start talking the language of all the things that she was saying and all the emblems that she was addressing, you know, and, by the way, Mike Epsy is almost a centrist when it comes to a Democrat. You ought to love him. He's a free trader. He's moderate. Hell, he's more of a Republican than you are."
Watch the discussion below: