CNN’s Brianna Keilar Calls Out Trump’s ‘Racist’ Record Of ‘Purposely’ Mispronouncing ‘Non-White Names’
CNN anchor Brianna Keilar attacked former President Donald Trump’s history of “purposely” mispronouncing “traditionally non-white names as a racist dog whistle” – running back the tape on the many occasions he’s used the “name game” tactic to try to undermine his opponents.
As debate flares up on mispronunciations of Vice President Kamala Harris’ name, on Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s Special Report With Bret Baier Keilar ran back the tape on Trump’s former offenses.
The host began: “Since it seems pretty obvious that we’re going to be saying Vice President Kamala Harris’ name a lot. Let’s talk about pronouncing it correctly and why former President Donald Trump refuses to.”
Keliar then ran a clip of Trump’s campaign rally in Florida last Friday where he shared a story of how some of his close aides were trying to coach him into saying Harris’ name correctly.
Trump told rally attendees: “They were explaining to me, you can say Camila, you could say Kamala. I said, don’t worry about it, doesn’t matter what I say. I couldn’t care less if I mispronounced it or not, I couldn’t care less.”
Keilar jumped back in with her monologue, unpacking the targets of Trump’s deliberate mispronunciations: “For someone who says he doesn’t care, Trump sure seems to care at least about the fact that he’s now facing Harris instead of President Joe Biden in this election. We’ve all mispronounced names. This is obviously not that. Trump has a history of purposely mispronouncing names, specifically of people who aren’t went white, or emphasizing traditionally non-white names as a racist dog whistle.”
She continued: “For instance, the biggest perpetrator of the birther conspiracy theory is also the longtime president of the Barack Obama middle name fan club.”
The host ran a clip of Trump emphasizing former President Barack Obama’s middle name, Hussein, as the crowd booed: “Barack H. Obama. Barack Hussein Obama.”
Keliar then circled around to flag other occasions Trump had used the tactic: “During the Republican primaries, he called former South Carolina governor Nikki Haley, who goes by her middle name Nikki, ‘Nimrata’, which is a bastardization of her birth name, Nimarata. He also called her ‘Nimbra.’”
Trump became so synonymous with name calling that during the Democratic National Convention, the host said, he became the subject of a comedy bit that mispronounced the name of his then-Vice President Mike Pence as ‘Ponts’ and ‘Pints’ – as the comedians jokingly commented it was some “weird foreign name” and “not very American.”
Returning to the current round of “name game” insults, Keilar said: “But as Trump appeals to voters who do think it’s funny that he says Kumala, instead of Kamala, to try to diminish his opponents simply because she isn’t white, it might alienate the voters who don’t think it’s funny. Might it backfire? It wouldn’t be the first time that his name game has.”
She ran a further clip of Trump confusing the fact that President Joe Biden “won against Barack Hussein Obama” – all so he could drop the middle name.
Keilar added: “Biden won against Trump, not Obama. Trump dismissed his repeated allusion to the Biden-Obama matchup that never was as sarcasm, bristling at suggestions by critics that the slip-ups were a sign he’s showing his age.
Concluding, she asked: “Which makes you think, what if the shoe were on the other foot? And the emphasis on his other syllable Don-Old. Would he like it? Maybe, as he says, he wouldn’t worry about it? Maybe it wouldn’t matter to him. Maybe he couldn’t care less? Doubtful.”
Watch above on CNN.
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