CNN En Español Anchor Juan Carlos López’ “analysis” of Senator Tim Scott’s rebuttal speech makes clear that, regardless of language, CNN is going to CNN.
Watch López attempt to string together two completely unrelated remarks, from speeches nearly five years apart, as proof evident of a contradiction:
U.S. SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-SC): Hear me clearly. America is not a racist country. It's backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination, and it's wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debate in the present.
JUAN CARLOS LOPEZ: That's what Senator Tim Scott said. He is a Republican, he represents South Carolina. He is the lone Black Republican senator, and you've just heard him. He says, "America is not a racist country." But his message was somewhat different in 2016. Let's listen (to this):
SCOTT: In the course of one year, I've been stopped seven times by law enforcement officers. Not four, not five, not six, but seven times, in one year, as an elected official. Was I speeding sometimes? Sure. But the vast majority of the time, I was pulled over for nothing more than driving a new car in the wrong neighborhood, or some other reason just as trivial.
LOPEZ: Draw your own conclusions.
The only conclusion to draw here is that López was desperate to join his CNN comrades in dunking on Scott. So desperate, in fact, that he jumped over the entirety of the portion of Scott’s rebuttal addressing race in order to manufacture an inconsistency with which to deliver a smug “tu quoque”. It’s even more absurd if you look at the text:
Nowhere do we need common ground more desperately than in our discussions of race. I have experienced the pain of discrimination. I know what it feels like to be pulled over for no reason. To be followed around a store while I’m shopping. I remember, every morning, at the kitchen table, my grandfather would open the newspaper and read it — I thought. But later, I realized he had never learned to read it. He just wanted to set the right example.
I’ve also experienced a different kind of intolerance. I get called “Uncle Tom” and the n-word by progressives, by liberals. Just last week, a national newspaper suggested my family’s poverty was actually privilege because a relative owned land generations before my time.
Believe me, I know firsthand our healing is not finished. In 2015, after the shooting of Walter Scott, I wrote a bill to fund body cameras. Last year, after the deaths of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, I built an even bigger police reform proposal. But my Democratic colleagues blocked it.
I extended an olive branch. I offered amendments. But Democrats used the filibuster to block the debate from even happening. My friends across the aisle seemed to want the issue more than they wanted a solution. But I’m still working. I’m hopeful that this will be different.
When America comes together, we’ve made tremendous progress. But powerful forces want to pull us apart. A hundred years ago, kids in classrooms were taught the color of their skin was their most important characteristic. And if they looked a certain way, they were inferior.
Today, kids again are being taught that the color of their skin defines them, and if they look a certain way, they’re an oppressor. From colleges to corporations to our culture, people are making money and gaining power by pretending we haven’t made any progress at all, by doubling down on the divisions we’ve worked so hard to heal.
You know this stuff is wrong. Hear me clearly: America is not a racist country. It’s backwards to fight discrimination with different types of discrimination. And it’s wrong to try to use our painful past to dishonestly shut down debates in the present.
Scott said that “our healing is not finished” and addressed his interactions with law enforcement BEFORE affirming that America is not a racist country. Scott’s statements are wholly consistent, López' feelings notwithstanding. Next time, Mr. López might want to watch the entirety of a speech before trying to dunk on it, exposing himself in front of CNNEE’s viewers.
Regardless of language, one thing remains constant. This… is CNN.
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