During an appearance on Wednesday’s “Morning Joe” on MSNBC, 2020 Democratic presidential hopeful Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) reacted to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) dropping out of the race by voicing his concerns with the lack of black candidates remaining.
Booker lamented that the “unintended consequences of the rules” allow for a billionaire to be on the debate stage rather than “people who have legitimate chances to win the nomination.”
“I’m not concerned about the lack of diversity of — I’m really not because we have is four states that have geographical and racial diversity,” Booker advised. “I am concerned that the unintended consequences of the rules that have been written allows a billionaire — and by the way, if the debate stage stays what it is right now, it will have more billionaires than black people. It allows billionaires to be up on that stage and not people that have legitimate chances to win the nomination.”
He continued, “I believe these artificial hurdles for this debate stage right now are having the unintended consequences of having minority voices, which are essential … to moving our party to the right policy and the right positions are being excluded. And that’s problematic for a party that will rely on black and Latino, black and brown, I should say, Asian Americans and others, turning out at record numbers — not just to win back the presidency, but to win back critical Senate seats.”
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