Former Obama administration "green jobs czar" Van Jones gave a very blunt, racially-tinged reaction to the impending victory of Donald Trump during CNN's Election Night coverage: "It's hard to be a parent, tonight, for a lot of us. You tell your kids, don't be a bully. You tell your kids, don't be a bigot....And then, you have this outcome....how do I explain this to my children?" Jones later asserted, "This was a 'white-lash.' This was a 'white-lash' against a changing country. It was a 'white-lash' against a black president, in part." [video below]
The CNN commentator first congratulated Trump supporters Jeffrey Lord (who is also a writer for NewsBusters) and Kayleigh McEnany: "I have enough class, and I was raised well enough to say, when you outdo expectations, good for you." He continued by setting up his raw take on the election: "There's another side to this: people have talked about a miracle. I'm hearing about a nightmare."
Jones then gave his "hard to be a parent" take, and added, "I have Muslim friends who are texting me tonight — saying, should I leave the country? I have families of immigrants that are terrified tonight." Moments later, he acknowledged that "this was a rebellion against the elites — true. It was a complete re-invention of — of politics and polls — it's true." He ended with his "white-lash" term and underlined, "So, this is a deeply painful moment tonight. I know it's not just about race. There's more going on than that. But race is here, too; and we got to talk about it."
The transcript of the relevant portion of the panel discussion from the 12 am Eastern hour of CNN's election coverage on November 9, 2016:
VAN JONES, FORMER OBAMA ADMINISTRATION OFFICIAL: First of all, congratulations. Both of you guys were—
JEFFREY LORD: We're not there yet— (laughs)
JONES: Well — well, you're further than anybody said you would be. And I have enough class, and I was raised well enough to say, when you outdo—
LORD: Yes, sir. Thank you—
JONES: When you outdo expectations — you know, good for you. But there's another side to this: people have talked about a miracle. I'm hearing about a nightmare. It's hard to be a parent, tonight, for a lot of us. You tell your kids, don't be a bully. You tell your kids, don't be a bigot. You tell your kids, do your homework and be prepared. And then, you have this outcome, and you have people putting children to bed tonight, and they — they're afraid of breakfast. They're afraid of, how do I explain this to my children?
I have Muslim friends who are texting me tonight — saying, should I leave the country? I have families of immigrants that are terrified tonight. This was many things. This was a rebellion against the elites — true. It was a complete re-invention of — of politics and polls — it's true. But it was also something else: we've talked about race — I mean, we've talked about everything but race tonight. We have talked about income. We've talked about class. We've talked about region. We haven't talked about race.
This was a 'white-lash.' This was a 'white-lash' against a changing country. It was a 'white-lash' against a black president, in part. And that's the part where the pain comes. And Donald Trump has a responsibility tonight to come out and reassure people that he is going to be the president of all the people who he insulted and offended and — and brushed aside.
Yeah, when you say — you know, you want to take your country back, you've got a lot of people who feel that we're not represented well either. But we don't want to feel that someone has been elected by throwing away some of us to appeal more deeply to others
So, this is a deeply painful moment tonight. I know it's not just about race. There's more going on than that. But race is here, too; and we got to talk about it.
