On Monday’s broadcast of CNN’s “Inside Politics,” 2020 presidential candidate Senator Cory Booker (D-NJ) stated that he doesn’t welcome President Trump’s statement that America must condemn bigotry, and that “reconciliation, the kind of healing that we need, starts first with someone standing up and saying, I’ve been wrong. I’ve made mistakes. What I’ve said before has been unacceptable.”
Booker said, “You know, the president, in his remarks, were weak — was weak and he was wrong. There can be no equivocation in a time like this, where we have a serious crisis in our country, and for the president to imply that video games and mental illness was the reason why a white supremacist with a gun did what he did, mental illness didn’t kill the people of Dayton. A man wielding a high-caliber, high-capacity rifle did.”
Host Kate Bolduan then asked, “Senator, another thing that the president said in his remarks today…’In one voice, our nation must condemn racism, bigotry, and white supremacy.’ That has been something — hearing that from President Trump has been something that I know a lot of folks have been waiting for and looking for, not just in the past 24 hours, but for a very long time. Do you welcome that acknowledgment?”
Booker answered, “No. Look, reconciliation, the kind of healing that we need, starts first with someone standing up and saying, I’ve been wrong. I’ve made mistakes. What I’ve said before has been unacceptable. So, you can’t speak out of one side of your mouth about the need for us to come together as a country, but consistently do things that divide this nation and pit us against each other, that fuel racial bigotry and hatred.”
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