Donald Trump is threatening to withhold Obamacare payments for 7 million of the most vulnerable people in this country as a way to bring Democrats to the negotiating table. Instead of working with them to strengthen and improve the Affordable Care Act, he’s threatening to inflict real, life-endangering harm, playing with people’s lives.
That setup leads to this CNN segment with commentators Jeffrey Lord and Symone Sanders on “New Day with Chris Cuomo and Alisyn Camerota.” As the two were discussing Trump’s cruel threat, Jeffrey Lord inexplicably tries to compare Donald Trump to civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. And whelp, Symone Sanders goes there in response, saying “Let's not equate Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. to the vagina-grabbing president of the United States”
WATCH (transcript below):
Kudos to Symone Sanders for remaining as calm as she did. My heart was thumping and I felt my blood pressure rising from here!
The transcript:
SYMONE SANDERS: The president sees millions of people benefitting from health insurance on the ACA. He sees bargaining chips. He doesn't see lives. He is putting people in danger. This is a wildly popular piece of legislation. It is only more popular with the Republicans attempt to repeal. Now Democrats are saying, look, we know Obamacare has some issues. We're willing to work with you to fix the issues. The administration has yet to come to the table.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Hold on. I want to challenge what you are saying. This is how he does it. He says something generally inflammatory or at least it gets attention and this certainly got chuck Schumer's attention. He backs off. Symone, why is this something we would see?
SYMONE SANDERS: We don't know. We have seen a president, Donald Trump who says one thing and does another. We don't know what the president would do. All we can do is go off what he is saying. What he is saying is if you don't give me what I want, I withhold from everybody. That will hurt people. I don't think we can use this rhetoric, Alisyn, when we deal with people's lives. People with serious illness from cancer down the line. I think we need to step back and the president should take a more humane tone and course of action when talking about the issue.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Jeffery, does it scare people when they hear it? It is a negotiating tactic and it scars people.
JEFFREY LORD: Alisyn, I want to say something here that will drive symone crazy. Think of president trump as the martin Luther king of health care.
When I was a kid, the president didn't want to introduce the civil rights bill because he did not have the votes for it. Dr. King kept putting people in the streets in harm's way to put pressure on for the bill to be put forward.
SYMONE SANDERS: You understand that Dr. King was marching for civil rights because people that looked like me were being beaten. Dogs siced on them. Merely because of the color of the skin. Let's not equate Dr. Martin Luther king Jr. To the vagina-grabbing president of the United States.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Oh boy. Jeffrey- you did introduce this, (laughs), you went there
SYMONE SANDERS: There is no similarity. What president trump is doing is he is in over his head. He doesn't understand health care is a complicated issue. He just arrived here. Most of us have been here. He doesn't understand these are
It remains a great mystery as to why CNN thinks Jeffrey Lord continues to be booked on CNN.