Rep. Hakeem Jeffries stands by comparison of Trump to Klan leader
Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said he has nothing to apologize for over calling President Trump the “grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.” in a speech on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.
“We’ve got to have an opportunity for at least one day a year to have a candid, if sometimes uncomfortable, conversation about race,” Jeffries said on CNN’s “New Day” Wednesday. “Seems to me that we can’t have that conversation on Valentine’s Day, we can’t have that conversation on St. Patrick’s Day. It’s perhaps appropriate for us to be able to have that difficult discussion on MLK Day when we’re celebrating the life and legacy of a champion for racial and social justice.”
At an event in Harlem on Monday, Jeffries, the chairman of the House Democratic Caucus, criticized Trump’s history of racially insensitive remarks.
“We have a hater in the White House — the birther in chief,” he said. “The grand wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. One of the things that we’ve learned is that while Jim Crow may be dead, he’s still got some nieces and nephews that are alive and well.”
Jeffries defended using what he called a “colorful phrase.” “Grand wizard” is a title sometimes given to the national leader of the Ku Klux Klan.
“Of course I do not believe that the president is a card-carrying member of the KKK,” Jeffries said Wednesday. “But [I] did capture a troubling pattern of racially insensitive and outrageous, at times, behavior that spans not months, not years, but decades.”
"I do not believe that the President is a card-carrying member of the KKK, but he has presided and engaged in directly a series of racially insensitive remarks," @RepJeffries says about calling President Trump "Grand Wizard of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue" https://t.co/FJ4U0s8Wqx pic.twitter.com/gixPDnnjQb
— New Day (@NewDay) January 23, 2019
The congressman cited examples going back to Trump’s early career in New York City real estate, when his company was sued by the Department of Justice over its policies on renting apartment to minorities; his inciting a “lynch mob” against black and Latino teenagers who were falsely accused and convicted of rape in the “Central Park Five” case; and his promotion of the lie that Barack Obama wasn’t born in the United States.
“He has presided over and engaged in, directly, a series of racially insensitive remarks,” Jeffries said. “We cannot whitewash that. We cannot hide it. And on King Day, we should be able to have that candid discussion.
“I also understand why Americans of goodwill on the left and on the right, Democrats and Republicans, progressives and conservatives want to give this president or any president the benefit of the doubt,” he continued. “I do as well. And I also believe in the power of redemption, and hopefully we’ll see better behavior moving forward as it relates to trying to bring this country together and not peddling xenophobia out of the Oval Office and 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. I think that’s what would make America a stronger country.”
Jeffries pointed out that although he compared Trump to a Klansman, he didn’t actually call him a racist.
“I did not use the word racist in any of my comments,” he said.
Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., though, did.
“Today we talk about justice and today we talk about racism,” Sanders said during a speech at a Martin Luther King Jr. event in Colombia, S.C., on Monday. “It gives me no pleasure to tell you that we now have a president of the United States who is a racist.”
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