Monday on CNN, Brian Stelter declared President Donald Trump’s exchange with CBS News White House correspondent Weijia Jiang was “racist.”
In a clip, Trump said, “Well, they’re losing their lives everywhere in the world. Maybe that’s a question you should ask China. Don’t ask me. Ask China that question. OK, when you ask them that question, you may get a very unusual answer. Yes, behind you, please.”
Jiang said, “Sir, why are you saying that to me, specifically?”
Stelter said, “I think what we saw in that exchange is something that has racial overtones. It is racist to look at an Asian-American White House correspondent and say, ‘Ask China.’ This isn’t happening in a vacuum. This is part of a pattern of behavior from the president that goes back many years. He doesn’t have the benefit of the doubt that someone might have if, for the first time in their life, they made a comment like that to a reporter. But the president has been rattled by Weijia Jiang’s questions in the past. He has treated her and other female reporters differently in the past. And he’s also had this pattern of reacting to minority journalists in a very specific and different way, Wolf.”
He continued, “For example, a few years ago President Trump said to April Ryan, a black correspondent, to follow up with the Congressional Black Caucus because he kind of just assumed they were friends. And here today, he’s saying to a Chinese-born journalist, ask China. Now, of course, he says he would have said the same thing to anyone. But the pattern suggests otherwise. The pattern suggests a racial reaction to certain individuals in the press corps. And that’s deeply, deeply disturbing.”
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