CNN commentator Ana Navarro got heated with a Latino pro-MAGA panelist, telling the Republican he’s “okay with racism.”
Navarro and former California Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado joined Anderson Cooper on CNN on Monday and Navarro, also a co-host on The View, said the support of Maldonado and other Latinos for former President Donald Trump “boggles the mind.”
A New York Times/Siena college poll released this week found Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump among likely Hispanic voters, but she’s also performing worse than Democrats among the voting group than 2016 and 2020, while Trump’s numbers are better compared to those past election cycles.
Navarro pointed to another question in the poll that found that a majority of Hispanic voters do not feel Trump is talking about them when he talks about “problems with immigration.” According to the survey, 51% of likely Hispanic voters born in a different country do not feel Trump is talking about them, while 43% feel he is. Among Hispanics born in the United States, 67% said they don’t feel Trump is talking about them, while 30% feel he is.
Navarro laid into Maldonado and others for their Trump support despite controversial statements like saying illegal immigrants are “poisoning the blood” of the country:
One of the things that I found really interesting about that poll also, was that the majority of Latinos think that when Donald Trump is making anti-immigrant remarks and when he’s making, you know, talking with racial slurs and the things he says that we all have heard him say, they think it doesn’t apply to them, and I have a really hard time understanding that because I, you know, when the shooter showed up at the Walmart in El Paso and shot 22 people and then there were another 22 victims, he didn‘t stop to ask the people if they were legal or if they were undocumented, he just shot people because they look like Latinos and he went to El Paso because that was where Latinos went and he was hunting down Latinos inspired by anti-immigrant rhetoric.
She then honed in on Maldonado and said it was mind-boggling that someone who “looks” like him could throw their weight behind Trump.
“It boggles the mind that somebody who looks like you, who looks like me, who sounds like you, who sounds like me, think that when he is making anti-immigrant racial offenses, it doesn’t apply,” Navarro told her fellow panelist.
Maldonado pushed back, saying Trump is referring to criminals when he uses more aggressive language in reference to migrants.
“When President Trump’s talking, he’s talking about criminal folks that are being sent to our country. He’s not talking about Latinos that are coming here to work hard. There’s a process to come here and work hard,” he said.
“Do you think that a racist is going to ask you for your immigration papers?” Navarro shot back.
“Latinos believe and they know that President Trump is not a racist. He’s a business owner,” Maldonado declared.
When he declared that he’s on the “Trump 47 bus,” Navarro told him that means he’s “okay with racism.”
“That means you’re okay with racism. It doesn’t mean he’s not racist,” she said.
“Absolutely not,” the Republican shot back before Cooper closed the segment.
Watch above via CNN.