CNN This Morning criticized GOP primary candidates Senator Tim Scott (SC) and former Ambassador Nikki Haley for opposing Obama’s stance on race this Monday, hinting that they betrayed their own. Commentators LZ Granderson and Ron Brownstein called the candidates’ actions “disappointing” and “unfortunate” and claimed that ignoring racism and sexism defined the Republican coalition. Granderson also cited Haley’s use of “them” in a tweet as proof she did not identify with minorities.
Responding to Scott’s tweet: “The truth of my life disproves the lies of the radical left,” Granderson rebuked Scott for ignoring part of his story. “Like it, it took a hundred years from reconstruction to his election to get an African-American Republican from the South represented in the Senate. That's not by accident. That's by design,” Granderson explained. “And for him to not acknowledge that design as part of his story is really unfortunate.”
Scott never denied that racism marred America’s past and tweeted on Monday celebrating Juneteenth and the freedom slaves won; “We honor Juneteenth not to dwell on our original sin as a nation, but to showcase just how far we’ve come. We can’t forget the lessons of our past, but we must always continue to strive towards a more perfect union.”
The Senator preached empowerment, declaring his own rise as proof that minorities can lift themselves out of poverty without help. CNN and Granderson preferred talking about the past and saw Scott’s failure to dwell on past wrongs as an unfortunate breach in conduct.
Their dissatisfaction with his life story only proved Scott’s claim that he disrupts their narrative.
Granderson also took a strong stance on Haley’s tweet which criticized Obama for promoting victimhood:
And what's even more unfortunate, when you look at that quote from -- that tweet from Governor Haley -- Ambassador Haley, the word, the pronoun “them,” distancing herself from minorities, despite being a racial minority herself reveals a lot more about her understanding of how she factors into race in this country.
Disapproving of her message, Granderson attempted to cancel Haley’s voice by asserting she did not identify as a minority.
Ironically, Haley, the daughter of Punjabi Sikh immigrants, wrote If You Want Something Done: Leadership Lessons from Bold Women, a book about succeeding as a minority. However, like Scott, being a minority was no longer enough to understand being a minority, nor was writing a book on the subject.
Brownstein agreed with Granderson and tied CNN’s disapproval of self-sufficient minorities to their disapproval of the Republican Party at large.
Their comments are very revealing because the assertion that systemic discrimination does not exist against minorities and against women is a defining maybe the defining unifying belief of the Republican coalition in the Trump era.
CNN encouraged discussion that discredited minorities and attempted to suppress their views because their message contradicted the left’s script. Far from victimized, both Scott and Haley promoted personal responsibility and proved that minorities can thrive in America. How “unfortunate” and “disappointing” that not all minorities feel repressed, despite CNN’s best efforts.
Best Western sponsored CNN’s anti-Republican Coverage.
The Transcript is below, click "expand" to read.
CNN This Morning
6/19/2023
8:21 AM Eastern
ERICA HILL: I mean, let's talk about Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. So there were comments that former President Obama made with David Axelrod on his podcast, his most recent podcast, about how the Republican Party deals with race and deals with the conversation about race and, frankly, the history of this country.
And they really pushed back, both – both Tim Scott and Nikki Haley. I think we have some of the tweet from Nikki Haley saying that, tweeting in part: "Obama sent minorities back by singling them out as victims instead of empowering them." Tim Scott arguing, "Obama missed an opportunity here to unite the country as America's first Black president."
This was very strong pushback on this idea that there needs to be a real conversation, right, which is really what the former President was getting at and he has yet to see it.
LZ GRANDERSON: Right.
HILL: Does that work?
GRANDERSON: No, because the proof is in the pudding. Right? Like, Tim Scott, right? Like it, it took a hundred years from reconstruction to his election to get an African-American Republican from the south represented in the Senate. That's not by accident. That's by design.
And for him to not acknowledge that design as part of his story is really unfortunate. And what's even more unfortunate, when you look at that quote from -- that tweet from Governor Haley -- Ambassador Haley, the word, the pronoun “them,” distancing herself from minorities, despite being a racial minority herself reveals a lot more about her understanding of how she factors into race in this country, more so than Obama's impact on minorities or how minorities view themselves in general.
RON BROWNSTEIN: Their comments are very revealing because the assertion that systemic discrimination does not exist against minorities and against women is a defining maybe the defining unifying belief of the Republican coalition in the Trump era.
And political scientists have studied to say that both in 2016 and 2020, the best predictor of who voted for Trump was the denial that racism and sexism exists. Three-quarters of Republicans say in polls that discrimination against whites is now as big a problem as bias against minorities, over three-fifths say white men are the most discriminated group in society.
There are virtually no Republican leaders who challenge that belief despite substantial evidence to the contrary on wealth gaps and poverty and concentrated poverty in schools. And especially, I think, for Republicans of color, that it is very hard to get hurt on anything else if you challenge that bedrock belief within the coalition that the real victims of discrimination in society now are conservatives, whites, Christians, conservatives, and you just don't see anybody in the party challenging that.
And Haley and Scott have fallen very much into that line.
GRANDERSON: Which is the reason why their comments are so disappointing, because I think there is a hunger to get past this two-party system. But you're really putting a lot of people in -- you know, minorities, queer people, people who believe in reproductive rights, you're really putting them in a box, because not having a healthy conversation really makes it this or that, and I don't think Americans want that.
That's the reason why so many people identify as Independents because you don't want that.
BROWNSTEIN: And you're saying, I mean, two-thirds of Black and Hispanic kids attend schools where a majority of their classmates live in poverty, like, are you fundamentally saying that that is because all of their parents didn't try hard enough? Like is that the argument like if you're saying that there is not systemic inequity in society?
So at some level, just the argument is just -- it can't sustain the lived reality of modern American life.
GRANDERSON: And neither argument to keep the framework together.
BROWNSTEIN: Yeah, absolutely.
BLACKWELL: But at this moment, there doesn't appear to be any audience for the honest accounting that former President Obama is calling for.
Thank you all. LZ, Ron, thank you very much.
