A CNN panel agreed on Monday that President Donald Trump needs to learn more about American history after he questioned why the Civil War was fought and suggested that President Andrew Jackson could have prevented the conflict even though Jackson was dead at the time.
During an interview with the Washington Examiner's Salena Zito over the weekend, Trump opined about his affection for Jackson.
I mean, had Andrew Jackson been a little later, you wouldn't have had the Civil War. He was a very tough person, but he had a big heart. He was really angry that he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War. He said, “There's no reason for this.” People don't realize, you know, the Civil War — if you think about it, why? People don't ask that question, but why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?
CNN host Poppy Harlow said on Monday that she found it "bizarre" that anyone would question why there was a Civil War.
"As a point of history," co-host John Berman noted. "When Andrew Jackson was president -- and he died 16 years before the Civil War -- he dealt with what is called the Nullification Crisis with South Carolina. South Carolina threatened to supersede federal law, there was the idea of secession then and he tamped it down. But it wasn't about slavery and Andrew Jackson was, of course, a slaveholder."
CNN contributor Maria Cardona offered Trump a piece of advice: "Mr. Trump, crack a book."
"He is the president of the United States," Cardona said. "And when he says ridiculous statements like this, it betrays his complete and total ignorance when it comes to history. But worse than that, John and Poppy, I think it really signifies how uninterested and the disdain that he has for people who really are, not just historians, but experts in public policy and in politics and everything that you need to know to actually learn to govern and to be able to run a country."
"I think it's too late," she added. "Which is why the majority of Americans did not support him. We knew that he had this disdain for knowledge and lack of curiosity that makes him completely inept for this job."
