Van Jones: SOTU ‘a Warning’ to Dems, What Trump Said to African-Americans ‘Can Be Effective’

During CNN’s State of the Union coverage on Tuesday, CNN Political Commentator and former Obama adviser Van Jones stated that President Trump’s State of the Union was a “warning shot across the bow of Democrats” and warned that “there’s a whole bubble thing that goes on,” among the left and “what he was saying to African-Americans can be effective.”

Jones began by saying, “I think the last 24 hours have been a big wake-up call for Democrats. That’s what I think. The Iowa caucus was a debacle, and this was a very strong speech. And it shows what he thinks he needs to do to win. … He knows he’s got to give a lot of red meat to his base, and he gave it.”

Jones continued, “But he’s doing something else, and it has to do with how he’s going to manage race in this thing, and there seems to be a tradeoff between the Latinos and the African-Americans, that’s what you see. He went hard on the sanctuary city stuff. That is very, very disturbing. It turns out sanctuary cities are actually safer than non-sanctuary cities. The Cato Institute, which is libertarian, has come out and said that immigrants are committing less crime. So, for some reason, he thinks that doubling down on the anti-immigrant piece is a big part of this thing. At the same time, a warning to Democrats, what he was saying to African-Americans can be effective. You may not like it, but he mentioned HBCUs, our black colleges have been struggling for a long time, a bunch of them have gone under. He threw a lifeline to them, in real life, in his budget. He talked about that. He talked about the criminal justice reform. He talked about opportunity zones. … He talked about school choice.”

Jones further stated, “I think that we’ve got to wake up, folks, there’s a whole bubble thing that goes on, where we say, well, he said s-hole nations, therefore all black people are going to hate him forever. That ain’t necessarily so. And I think what you’re going to see him do, is say, you may not like my rhetoric, but look at my results, look at my record, to black people. If he narrowcasts that, it’s going to be effective. … That was a warning to us, a warning shot across the bow of Democrats that he’s going after enough black folks to cause us problems.”

Jones did concede CNN Senior Political Commentator and former Obama adviser David Axelrod’s point that the State of the Union was a teleprompter speech, and Trump might say completely different things during his rallies.

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett