Lewandowski first denied that Trump "is on the ballot" in the 2018 midterms on the eve of the election — even after Cuomo reminded him that the president himself has "said it many times."
Later in the interview, the host said point-blank that Trump's ad portraying an undocumented immigrant who killed police officers and smearing the Democrats with his crimes was racist — but his former campaign manager demurred.
"Why did [the networks] pull the ad?" Cuomo said. "Because it's a racist ad. That's why."
"I don't think it's racist for the individual's words to be used," Lewandowski rebutted.
"I believe it's the president's job above all else to keep each American safe from all enemies foreign and domestic," the former campaign manager who was once arrested for allegedly assaulting a conservative female reporter said. "If you have killers coming into the country, then we have to do everything we can, and he has to do everything he can, to make sure we don't have more people coming in who want to commit those acts."
Cuomo, however, wouldn't let him off the hook.
"What's the difference between this guy and all of the other killers in this country right now? All the unsolved homicides, the disproportionate killings of those lower on the economic scale and of African Americans? Those are all way bigger problems than the brown menace coming from the south who are these hordes," the host said. "He's not worried about them."
"If he wants to keep us safe, keep us safe from the people who have the best chance of killing us," Cuomo continued. "That's not this group. He's demonizing them, and the media said we can't run this ad anymore."
Lewandowski replied that the caravan "issue" had become politicized — to which the host rebutted that it was Trump himself who did the politicizing.
Watch the entire exchange below, via CNN:
