CNN’s Angela Rye Asks Bakari Sellers: When Was America Better Than Trump’s Racism?

CNN political commentator Angela Rye posed a pointed question to former Congressman Bakari Sellers on Tuesday morning. The CNN panel was discussing President Donald Trump’s plans for new restrictions on Green Card holders, which the guests agreed amounted to an attack racial minorities and the poor.

“He has a preferred group that he caters to,” Rye said. “He does want people to come in legally if they’re rich and. He’s fine with that group of immigrants. When we’re talking about health care, he wants that available to the privileged few. When we’re talking about voting, he wants that available to the privileged few.”

“White few,” April Ryan added.

“Of course,” Rye agreed. “I’m just saying there’s a consistent pattern here and there’s no secret, we don’t have to pretend like we don’t know exactly what this is.”

Later in the segment, Bakari Sellers made a familiar argument about how Trump’s policies aren’t who Americans are.

“I think we can all agree, this is a campaign of pure terror. This is a campaign of pure fear, and I hate to go back to this because it doesn’t, I mean, it rings hollow now because Donald Trump is the president but we’ve all been raised to believe this is not what our country was built upon, that we’re better than this.”

“That is not true,” Rye interjected.

“It definitely ain’t true now,” Sellers said. “When you talk about young people, even in El Paso, we did a story that people were afraid to go and identify…”

“Let me say, I don’t know who ‘we’ is,” Rye said. “When were we better?”

“I said what we were taught,” Sellers said.

“Yes. That’s what I was saying. I agree with that part,” Rye said.

“Can I give people something aspirational in the morning before they go to work?” Sellers asked.

“We could be better than this but we never have been,” Rye said.

Watch the video above, via CNN.