Dana Bash confronted Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy for comparing Rep. Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.) to one of the “modern day great wizards of the modern KKK” during a campaign rally in Iowa on Friday.
bash provided a rigorous fact check for Ramaswamy on Sunday morning’s State of the Union program as she tried to get the political novice to defend his comments about the MP, who became the first black woman to resign her state when elected in 2018 represented Congress.
“You know, I’m sure that the KKK was responsible for more than a century of horrific lynching, rape and murder of black people,” she said. “How do the views you speak about compare to the views and atrocities of the KKK at all?”
On Friday, Ramaswamy lashed out at Pressley via 2019 remarks in which she said the Democratic Party “doesn’t need more brown faces that don’t want to be brown voices.”
Paul Sancya via Associated Press
Ramaswamy tried to reword his comments, telling Bash he was just saying that the Ku Klux Klan leaders were “proud” of Pressley.
After Bash reminded Ramaswamy that he misquoted himself, the former biotech businessman tried to tie Pressley’s words to the “ghost” of the white supremacist terrorist organization.
“I think it’s in the same spirit to say that I can look at you and that I know something about the content of your character just from the color of your skin, that I know something about the content of the viewpoints you’re allowed to have.” Express “, he said.
“For Ayanna Pressley to tell me that I cannot speak my mind because of the color of my skin is wrong. It’s divisive. It fuels hatred in this country. “This is dividing our country to the breaking point,” he added.
While finally agreeing that the KKK’s reign of terror was “manifestly wrong,” Ramaswamy called for an “open and honest discussion” of racial issues, claiming that there is “a chasm between what people would say privately today and what they would say in public.” .”
“I think we, as Americans, need to have real, open, honest and raw conversations,” he said. “This is our path to national unity. And there are many Americans today who are deeply frustrated with the new culture of anti-racism, this is really racism in a new guise, and we need to have this debate openly.”
Pressley’s team answered Ramaswamy In a donation email on Saturday, he wrote: “We don’t normally engage in malicious attacks like this, but a line was crossed yesterday.”
“A GOP contestant called Ayanna the ‘modern Grand Wizard of the KKK’ for speaking out against racial injustice,” it said. “It’s backward and harmful, but that’s the point.”
