Despite the fact that Atlanta police have still refused to say race played a factor in Tuesday's mass shooting -- and the FBI is suggesting race was not a factor -- CNN Newsroom still blamed Republicans like former President Trump for the shooting on Thursday and wondered if the country has moved beyond things such as World War II internment camps. And who was president then? They never mentioned liberal hero Franklin Roosevelt did that.
CNN's guest William Tong, Connecticut's Attorney General, declared, "I lay the blame at the feet of politicians like President Trump when he started his war on American immigrants, that was really bad, it started to get bad, but when he blamed Asia Pacific-Americans, including Chinese-Americans for the coronavirus and called it the China Virus or the Kung Flu, that made all of us unsafe. And this is what happens."
Tong additionally claimed, "People get attacked in New York and San Francisco and now in Atlanta. And now six women are dead. Six Asian-American women, eight people total were murdered and the blood is on his hands and other politicians like him."
Instead of calling Tong out on his lie that Trump blamed Chinese-Americans for the virus, CNN's Poppy Harlow wondered if America is still a racist country, "You've been a victim of hate speech like this, repeatedly, and you made a really important point recently and that's that this country has a long history of legacy and hate and racism against Asians, just going back to the internment camps. And you also point to the -- this as just being the latest round of scapegoating. It makes me wonder if you think we've learned much as a country."
Scapegoating? Isn't that what Tong was just doing? And CNN was allowing, because Trump?
Tong replied by claiming people "don't know the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the beating death of Vincent Chin and the internment of 125,000 Japanese-American citizens in camps on American soil when we blame them for Pearl Harbor. Yeah, it happens to me. It happens all the time."
Still operating under the unproven assumption that what happened in Atlanta was a racially motivated hate crime, Sciutto claimed, "politicians have given license to these kinds of feelings against Asians, against blacks, against Latinos."
Less than five minutes later, after the interview with Tong had concluded, CNN was worrying about the spread of the "UK variant", which under the logic of the preceding interview, is inciting hate against Anglo-Saxon Americans.
This segment was sponsored by Chevrolet.
Here is the transcript of the March 18 show:
CNN
CNN Newsroom with Popp Harlow and Jim Sciutto
9:05 AM ET
WILLIAM TONG: Yes, let me just say it was chilling to hear that 911 call. And one of the victim's accents. She might have been someone in my family so, it's chilling for me and Asian-Americans across the country. I lay the blame at the feet of politicians like President Trump when he started his war on American immigrants, that was really bad, it started to get bad, but when he blamed Asia Pacific-Americans, including Chinese Americans for the coronavirus and called it the China Virus or the Kung Flu, that made all of us unsafe. And this is what happens. People get attacked in New York and San Francisco and now in Atlanta. And now six women are dead. Six Asian-American women, eight people total were murdered and the blood is on his hands and other politicians like him.
POPPY HARLOW: You are not only the attorney general there in Connecticut, you’re the son of Chinese immigrants. You've been a victim of hate speech like this, repeatedly, and you made a really important point recently and that's that this country has a long history of legacy and hate and racism against Asians, just going back to the internment camps. And you also point to the -- this as just being the latest round of scapegoating. It makes me wonder if you think we've learned much as a country.
TONG: Yeah, you have to wonder. And this is a history that people don't really know well. And that's what it means to be an Asian-American in this country today. You’re largely invisible in the discussion about racism. People are surprised to hear about anti-Asian hate. They don't know the legacy of the Chinese Exclusion Act, the beating death of Vincent Chin and the internment of 125,000 Japanese American citizens in camps on American soil when we blame them for Pearl Harbor. Yeah, it happens to me. It happens all the time. I've been called the Manchurian AG. My name has been mocked. And just yesterday someone accused me of being an agent of the Chinese Communist Party, I was born in Hartford, Connecticut. But I'm the attorney general, I can take it. If it happens to me it must happen a lot to everyday people who aren't attorneys general who don't have the same protection and public profile that I do. And I worry about families across Connecticut and across this country.
JIM SCIUTTO: This is happening at a time in this country where you have a broader rise in right-wing white supremacist extremism. There was an intelligence report yesterday that identifies this as the greatest -- well, reidentifies it because the data has been therefore sometime as the greatest domestic terrorism threat. As you know, politicians have given license to these kinds of feelings against Asians, against blacks, against Latinos. I wonder what you are calling to be done now. Calling for to be done now, right? Because it's about language. It's also about law enforcement response.
