On Sunday’s Inside Politics, New York Times reporter Jonathan Martin eagerly used a controversial speech by NRA president Wayne LaPierre to argue that part of the GOP base is driven by “white resentment politics.”
CNN host John King noted that Wayne LaPierre is a “big voice in the conservative movement. Most of the Republican presidential wannabes ran to the NRA meeting to lobby for support" before he played a small clip of LaPierre saying that “eight years of one demographically symbolic president enough.”
Rather than dismiss LaPierre’s comments as isolated, Martin insisted that such language could damage the Republican Party:
That's not the face that Jeb Bush wants on the top of their party. If you surveyed ten GOP strategists and showed them that clip and said is the face you want for your party? Ten out of ten would say, no, it’s not.
The New York Times reporter went on to push the liberal line that part of the GOP base is motivated by racial politics, which could spell major trouble for the moderate voices in the party:
I mean, this is the challenge they have is that a part of their base is driven by, you know, a sort of white resentment politics, and how do you overcome that in a country increasingly diverse while at the same time keeping the folks in your party energized because they have those views? It's not an easy balancing act, John, but it's -- they are going to have to address it.
At no point during Martin’s long rant did King or any of the guests challenge his claim and instead allowed him to further play up the notion that the GOP has a problem controlling its base:
Look, I was in New Hampshire over the weekend. Marco Rubio got a question from a lady who was very upset because her daughter couldn’t get a job teaching in a Florida public school because she did not have English as a second language certificate.
--
The cameras were all rolling, and Rubio was sort of very delicately walking around this issue. It's going to be a persisting challenge for them for sixteen months now.
See relevant transcript below.
CNN’s Inside Politics
April 19, 2015
JOHN KING: Let me add this to the mix. Wayne LaPierre, the head of the National Rifle Association, now that’s not the Republican Party, but it’s a big voice in the conservative movement. Most of the Republican presidential wannabes ran to the NRA meeting to lobby for support. Wayne LaPierre could make a case against gun control, he could make a case against the president on any issue he wanted to but he also decided to also make this case.
WAYNE LAPIERRE: When he is finished, he intends to go out with a coronation of Hillary Rodham Clinton. I have to tell you, eight years of one demographically symbolic president is enough.
KING: Why?
NIA-MALIKA HENDERSON: Yeah.
KING: Why?
JONATHAN MARTIN: That's not the face that Jeb Bush wants on the top of their party. If you surveyed ten GOP strategists and showed them that clip and said is the face you want for your party? Ten out of ten would say, no, it’s not. I mean, this is the challenge they have is that a part of their base is driven by, you know, a sort of white resentment politics, and how do you overcome that in a country increasingly diverse while at the same time keeping the folks in your party energized because they have those views? It's not an easy balancing act, John,
but it's -- they are going to have to address it.
Look, I was in New Hampshire over the weekend. Marco Rubio got a question from a lady who was very upset because her daughter couldn’t get a job teaching in a Florida public school because she did not have English as a second language certificate.
And she was going on a sort of, very extended riff about it's unfair that you would have to learn somebody else's language and they should learn English, right? The cameras were all rolling, and Rubio was sort of very delicately walking around this issue. It's going to be a persisting challenge for them for sixteen months now.
