CNN’s Cooper: Trump Is ‘Leaning Full into the Racist He’s Long Been’

Monday on CNN, host Anderson Cooper accused President Donald Trump of increasingly and openly being racist based on an interview he gave to CBN.

In a clip of the interview, Trump said, “So we go out, we test 25 million people, which is a lot. You never thought that’s even people. Most people didn’t. We could go up a lot higher than that, and I guess we are. I tell my people it’s a double-edged sword. We do so much testing, and we have kids with sniffles, and all of a sudden, we report a case, and they are in no danger whatsoever.”

Cooper said, “Thank God that hospitals and doctors do know more about this virus now and are able to treat it better. It seems instead to be part of the same contempt he’s had for testing, period because it makes him look bad. That’s what he felt from the beginning of this. Just think about how warped that is and plays into the larger disregard. Keeping them honest, this war-time president took himself out of the fight months ago, and being more honest, he was never in the fight, to begin with. He avoided wars and talks tough. When this viral war began, he was nowhere to be found. Maybe those old bone spurs of his flaring up, but he wasn’t in the fight. He wants us to suck it up.”

He continued, “This president wants you to suck it up, not just the virus but his failure to take it seriously. His inaction went all throughout the month of February, his lies and promises disappearing. He wants you to accept what people in no other country are being told to accept because now this isn’t just a virus killing us and making people sick: it’s incompetence and a failure of leadership. Instead of working around the clock on this, visiting hospitals, rallying the troops, rallying the public to wear masks, fight complacency, care for elderly and the sick, this president is simply declaring victory, declaring COVID 99% harmless instead of talking about the virus and doing things about it, he’s spending his time to trying to distract now with racist and jingoistic talk. He’s just leaning full into the racist he’s long been, he’s just letting us see it more clearly now than ever before.”

He added, “With 130,000 once breathing, once living now dead and tens of thousands now hospitalized, the president made it his priority to protect inanimate objects. Angered by the contempt Americans have for Confederate traders whose statutes were put up to lie about their cause and their actions. Statues designed to glorify the Confederacy and perpetuate white supremacy. That; ‘s what those statues were built for. That is the lie we were being told.”

Commenting on NASCAR and Bubba Wallace, Cooper said, “Do you notice how quick he is to attack black sports figures impugn their motives but white supremacists marching, chanting, the president saw some very fine people there. Gun-toting weekend worries dressed up to look like special forces bursting into the Michigan State House screaming at police and politicians outraged because they don’t want to wear masks. Those are good people, according to the president. If they had been black, what do you think the president would have said? It’s the Confederate Battle Flag he’s defending. Consider that, the president of the United States defending the flying of the Confederate Battle Flag.”

Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN

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