Hours after President Trump warned about an “invasion” of immigrants at the same time that he said white nationalism isn’t really a rising threat in response to a question about the white terror attack in New Zealand, CNN anchor Erin Burnett asked whether the president was foregoing “dog whistles” for open “white supremacy.”
At a White House signing event commemorating Trump’s veto of Congress’ resolution nixing his national emergency declaration, the president briefly offered condolences over the massacre of Muslims at their place of worship, only to quickly follow that up by raging against immigrants and painting them as dangerous criminals.
Appearing on Erin Burnett OutFront Friday, Rep. Andre Carson (D-IN), one of the few Muslims in Congress, expressed disappointment that Trump appears to be signaling to far-right extremists and ideologues in “his base” that he’s with them.
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“The suspect, of course, cited [Trump] as, you know, a symbol—a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose,” Burnett noted, referencing the New Zealand shooter’s online manifesto.
The CNN host then noted “this word echo of ‘invade’” by the president, noting that the shooter used it repeatedly when describing immigrants.
“The President of the United States obviously happened to, today, talk about his wall and in a very, very eerie and unfortunately word echo used the exact same word to talk about brown people,” Burnett said.
“He knows it's a dog whistle,” she said later in the program. “So then it’s not a dog whistle. That's just white supremacy, isn't it?”
