(Luis Cornelio, Headline USA) Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., came out on the offensive in response to a CNN host’s questions about President Donald Trump’s suggestions that Kamala Harris may have used her race for political gain.
On Wednesday, CNN anchor Kaitlan Collins belligerently asked Cotton whether speaking about Harris’s racial identity “increased or decreased” the Republican Party’s chances of winning the 2024 election.
A fired-up Cotton suggested Harris should face those questions, citing her absence from major media interviews and her past critical remarks about President Joe Biden’s disturbing record on race.
“Four years ago, Joe Biden said, if you don’t vote for him, ‘you ain’t black.’ Could you imagine a more insulting comment?” Cotton told Collins. “Joe Biden is presuming to judge the political views of one-eighth of our fellow citizens based on their skin… skin color. Did you did you ever ask Kamala Harris to condemn his remarks? Did asked her if that was racist?”
Recounting Harris’s infamous moment during the 2020 Democratic debate, Cotton asked, “Did you ask Kamala Harris why she’s willing to serve as vice president for a man she essentially called racist and a segregationist? Have you or anyone else in the media as Kamala Harris those questions, Kaitlan?”
Collins, seemingly stunned by Cotton’s swift pushback, retorted, “I covered the Biden-Harris white house. We obviously have asked for her to come on, but my question is for you about this.”
A Headline USA review of CNN’s transcripts records found no immediate instances of their anchors questioning Harris about Biden’s troubling record on race.
In 2020, Biden, then a former vice president seeking the Democratic nomination for the presidential election, infamously questioned the race of Black Americans potentially supporting Trump.
“If you have a problem figuring out whether you’re for me or Trump, then you ain’t black,” Biden bafflingly told radio host Charlamagne Tha God during a May 2020 interview.
Nearly a year earlier, Harris, then a Democratic candidate for president, blasted Biden over his disturbing adulation of former segregationist senators and opposition to federal school busing during segregation.
“It was hurtful to hear you talk about the reputations of two United States senators who built their reputations and careers on the segregation of race in this country,” Harris told Biden, alluding to his decades-long friendship with the late Sens. James Eastland, D-Miss., and Herman Talmadge, D-Ga.
“You also worked with them to oppose busing,” Harris added. “There was a little girl in California who was part of the second class to integrate her public schools and she was bused to school every day. That little girl was me.”
