After Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) contended in a “60 Minutes” interview last week that President Donald Trump was undoubtedly a racist, the White House hit back, claiming he “has repeatedly condemned racism and bigotry in all forms.”
But former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner wasn’t buying that.
The Democrat, who’s now a CNN commentator, launched into a scathing denunciation of the president’s race-baiting rhetoric in a panel discussion on the network Monday. Turner said Trump was one step away from bringing “back the colored and white water fountain [if] we leave it up to him.”
“The problem is...as a nation, we are trying to overcome the vestiges that have created white supremacy in this country, white-skinned privilege in this country,” she continued. “Does it mean that all white people are racist? Absolutely not. But it does mean that this nation was founded on racism, i.e., slavery. Period. Point blank.”
Turner, who’s also the head of Our Revolution, the political action organization born out of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) 2016 presidential run, pointed out that America’s long history of slavery could not be ignored.
That encompasses, she added, “400 years if you include black codes and Jim Crowe, the burdens that black people have had to bear in this country.”
Frustrated by Trump’s tendency to “stoke that instead of bringing people together,” Turner argued the president “is a flat out racist.”
The remarks are similar to those of Ocasio-Cortez, who made headlines for calling Trump out when her interview emerged last weekend.
To prove her point, the new congresswoman cited Trump’s weak response to neo-Nazi violence at the 2017 Charlottesville, Virginia “Unite the Right” rally in which counterprotester Heather Heyer was murdered. Ocasio-Cortez also noted the president’s relentless attacks on immigrants amid his attempted crackdown on the southern border.