“Bulls—“: Charlamagne Tha God And Anderson Cooper Spar Over Network’s Coverage Of Donald Trump Vs. Kamala Harris
Charlamagne Tha God and Anderson Cooper used expletives at points as they engaged in a spirited debate over how CNN and other networks have covered Donald Trump versus Kamala Harris.
On AC 360 on Thursday, Cooper made the point that when it comes to Trump, “if you like him, if you hate him, he …has shown us who he is every single day.”
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“Which is a fascist, and it is crazy because you still don’t have news networks having that conversation,” Charlamagne, host of the popular iHeartRadio radio show The Breakfast Club, responded.
He added that “When somebody questions Kamala Harris’ blackness, or is she a DEI hire, you all will have roundtable discussions about that, asking that question. How come you are not having roundtable discussions asking, ‘Is Donald Trump a fascist?’ Actually not even asking it, stating it.”
Cooper, though, noted that Charlamagne was “raising this with Kamala Harris, about her own authenticity, about her own willingness to just say things that aren’t crafted. Do you think she needs to do more of that?” He noted that Trump was appearing on Joe Rogan and asked him if Harris should do so as well.
“I think that she should keep calling Donald Trump a fascist and I think that Americans need to keep looking at the rhetoric of Donald Trump, because I don’t even know why we’re even thinking about electing somebody who’s talking about putting people in camps. I don’t know why we’re talking or why we want to elect somebody who’s talking about mass deportation. I don’t know why we’re having this conversation about somebody who wants to terminate the Constitution, to overthrow the results of an election. Aren’t we supposed to be a patriotic country? When somebody like Colin Kaepernick takes a knee in this country, everybody talks about, ‘Oh, that’s so unpatriotic.’ But a guy can say he wants to terminate the Constitution, overthrow the results of an election, and nobody cares. Even me bringing it up now, you brought it back to Kamala Harris and Joe Rogan, Anderson, who gives a damn.”
In an appearance before the National Association of Black Journalists last summer, Trump had questioned Harris’ identification as a Black person, suggesting that it was only recently and for political gain. She is mixed race, but has long identified as Black.
Later, when Charlamagne said that he thought he “heard more on this network about ‘Is Kamala Harris Black?’ than “Donald Trump being a fascist,’ Cooper said that notion was “bulls—.” He challenged that the network had featured pundit panels on whether Harris “was Black.”
“That’s bulls— Anderson. For you to say you have never had those discussions,” Charlamagne responded.
“I have never asked somebody…I don’t think any anchor on this network is going around saying, ‘Is she Black?'”
At the CNN town hall, Cooper asked Harris whether she thought that Trump was a fascist, and she said yes. Trump’s former chief of staff, John Kelly, had told The New York Times that Trump met the definition of a fascist.
Their full exchange is below.
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