CNN's Chris Cuomo nails Trump for 'not caring' who is offended by Native American insults
During Tuesday morning's political panel discussion, CNN's Chris Cuomo was incredulous notion that President Donald Trump actually cares about Native Americans or Native issues, much less anything else.
Trump was accused of racist comments earlier Monday while the Navajo code-talkers visited the White House during Native American Awareness Month.
“You were here long before any of us were here, although we have a representative in Congress who they say was here a long time ago, they call her Pocahontas. But you know what I like you,” Trump told them men, standing in front of a painting of Andrew Jackson, who signed the Indian Removal Act. It was a reference to Elizabeth Warren, who Trump holds a bizarre obsession with.
Warren told CNN she was floored that Trump was so incompetent that he couldn't even manage a simple press conference with American heroes from World War II.
"New Day" co-host Alisyn Camerota asked if the gaffe was deliberate or part of something more sinister.
Daily Beast editor John Avlon said that the Trump event "reads like another chapter in a weird excerpt from a Chris Buckley political satire."
"Andrew Jackson is either insensitivity, lack of history, lack of historical touch, or they just missed it," co-host Chris Cuomo noted. "They forgot where they were holding it and how it would be projected. That's fine."
Cuomo noted that it's completely different than the attack on Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA).
"That's a very different thing than the Pocahontas thing. That was a deliberate jab," Cuomo said. "It is completely intentional. And it is not obliviousness because the president doesn't care about the people who are sensitive to this. He literally turned to the Navajo hero and said 'I like you, though, because you're special.'"
Cuomo went on to explain that this is who Trump is and he's shocked people continue to be shocked by it.
"I don't understand why people have to keep explaining the reality of who the man is," Cuomo continued. "He will go at you any way he thinks he can that will hurt you. And Warren gave him a little bit of room when she couldn't prove her Cherokee roots to the satisfaction of those who were asking. Once he had that little bit of space, that's his dog whistle. 'She's a liar. The Democrats are liars. They're all fake.' He will do it as ugly as he can, because that's who he is. That's how he fights.
He admitted he didn't "mean to erupt but I don't see where the mystery is in this. He doesn't care if those guys are offended. He doesn't care so what?"
Watch the full commentary below: