CNN anchor Don Lemon on Wednesday during the handoff from fellow anchor Chris Cuomo said requiring voters to present an identification card was “racist.”
Discussing Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) at a hearing on voting rights, Cuomo said, “What he is playing on is the obvious, the optic of it. ‘What’s wrong with showing an ID? Everybody has an ID. What’s wrong with that?’ What he is leaving out is, of course, the pernicious part. When you ask somebody, do you think you should have a to show an ID to vote? Yeah, that sounds good people should know who you are. But you’re not discussing what it takes to get that ID and who has them and who doesn’t and why they don’t have them. That is where the truth lies, but he is not about the truth.”
Lemon said, “I try to explain that to people all the time, what is accepted as ID. I’m glad he said that. If you have license to carry that card, you can do it, but if you’re a student, your ID doesn’t work, or you know, an EBT card.”
Cuomo said, “Public assistance. I wonder who has public assistance cards?”
Lemon said, “You know who has public assistance cards, poor people.”
He continued, “I think you have to look as you said into the intent, and you have to do your research. People say that all the time. Why shouldn’t you have to show an ID? I say do the research and figure out what kinds of people historically don’t have IDs or who tend not to have IDs as to the rest of the population. So you got to look at all of those things and not just at the surface, as you said. Ask a question, you know, some summary question like oh, my gosh, yeah, of course, everyone’s going to say yes until you actually get down to the nitty-gritty. They know exactly what they’re doing. Yes, is it racist? It is racist.”
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