CNN needs to fire Jeffrey Lord if they want to keep the name "News" in their name. His performance with Van Jones tonight was shameful. Utterly shameless and also shameful. It was an insult to every Black person watching, and a mark on the head of any white person who would tolerate such lies.
First, Lord tried to deny Trump's racism and claim Trump had "disavowed" David Duke.
Then he goes to the so-called Republican Establishment to prove he and his pal Trump are no racists. Feigning shock and repulsion, Lord claimed, "Their view of civil rights is to tip the waiter five bucks at the local country club. This is atrocious."
Oh yeah, atrocious, but I'll bet Lord would have produced a fiver for Van Jones just to make his point, but Jones stepped in, reminding Lord that the things Donald Trump has done in the race are just flat-out offensive.
"We have a big problem at this point, because I agree with you a lot. I agree that we have taken [Trump] not seriously, we have not respected his voters, but there is a dark underside here, and S.E. is right," Jones began.
"He is whipping up and tapping into and punching buttons that are very, very frightening to me and frightening to a lot of people. Number one, when he is playing funny with the Klan, that is not cool."
Jones continued, "I know this man when he gets passionate about terrorism. I know how he talks about terrorism. The Klan is a terrorist organization that has killed --"
"-- A leftist organization," Lord interrupted.
He answered, "You can put any label on it you want. That's your game to play."
He then put an exclamation point on it, saying, "No, you need to take a serious look at the fact that this man has been playing fast and loose and footsie -- when you talk about terrorism, he gets passionate. He's says no, this is wrong. But when you talk about the Klan, oh, I don't know, I don't know. That's wrong."
Pointing at Lord, he continued, "And then you came on the air and you said this is just like when Reverend Wright was speaking. Reverend Wright never lynched anybody. Reverend Wright never killed anybody. Reverend Wright never put anybody on a post and you guys play these word games. And it is wrong to do in America."
Lord replied, "It is wrong to understand that these are not leftists."
"What difference does it make what you call them? Call them chipmunks, they killed people. And don't play games with that!," Jones shouted.
Lord taunted, "Don't hide and say that's not part of the base of the Democratic party. They were the military arm, the terrorist arm of the Democratic party according to historians"
Jones answered, "I don't care how they voted 50 years ago. I care who they killed."
After another back and forth, Jones brought up Trump's smear of the black kids in the Central Park jogger case, pointing out that after Trump got the entire city stirred up over it and after the kids were proven innocent, he never apologized for what he did.
Jones also raised the things Trump has said about Native Americans and others, to which Lord chided him. "Van, what you're doing is dividing people. This is what liberals do. You're dividing people by race."
Orwell would be nodding approvingly at that one, wouldn't he?
Jones replied, "The Klan divided people by race. The Klan killed people by race. And he had the opportunity."
"They did it to further the progressive agenda, hello," Lord answered.
Jones countered, "That is first of all, so absurd. The Democratic Party of the South in the old days was a racist party. You are correct, sir. They were a violent party. But that's not the Democratic party of today, so what are you talking about that for? You play these games --"
"That is the Democratic party of today. The Democratic Party of today divides by race," interrupted Lord.
Jones then related a story about his 7-year old child, saying that he wants him to watch the news but whenever his son watches, he hears such hateful things he doesn't even know how to explain it to him.
"Tell Donald Trump he needs to, for my children's sake, if he's going to lead this country he needs to be as passionate about what is happening to my kid as anybody else's."
"We have to be passionate about, as Robert Kennedy used to say, that this country is colorblind," Lord countered. "Race has no place in American life, or law," he added.
"We have lost that totally because the Democratic Party insists on dividing people by race," Lord concluded.
Every single argument Lord advanced was utter nonsense. It's a nice lie, but it's something that has no place on a cable channel calling itself "news."
