CNN's Don Lemon has blasted supporters of Donald Trump who overlook "evidence" of his alleged bigotry because they gain financially from his presidency.
The anchor appeared on Cuomo Prime Time Tuesday to discuss Trump's failure to speak out over the white supremacy comments that saw representative Steve King removed from the Judiciary and Agriculture Committees Monday.
On Monday morning, the president dismissed King's comments to reporters, saying "I haven't been following it, I really haven't been following it."
Host Chris Cuomo criticized the president's failure to condemn King, explaining Trump could use the situation as an opportunity to show his supporters he's "not a bigot".
"If you support the president you should want him to come out on this because it will give the cover you wants, which is 'I don't support a bigot. He's not a bigot,'" Cuomo said.
But fellow CNN reporter Lemon chuckled at the notion. "Come on, really. He's not a bigot?" he said. "I've already said of course he is—look at the evidence. This is not just my opinion. This is evidence. Data. Actions that have been collected and memorialized—even on tape, over the years."
The president can't speak out about King's remarks as he would risk alienating "the bigots and the racists" that support him, Lemon continued. "He does not want to lose their their support. If he speaks out against Steve King they're going to think he's not one of them again."
The reporter pointed to Trump's widely-condemned response to the 2017 "Unite the Right" rally in Charlottesville, that saw 32-year-old paralegal Heather Heyer killed by a car driven into a crowd of counterprotestors.
Trump responded to the deadly rally by claiming fault "on both sides." "You had some very bad people in that group," he said at the time. "But you also had people that were very fine people, on both sides."
A year after the tragedy, Trump tweeted: "I condemn all types of racism and acts of violence. Peace to ALL Americans!"
Trump supporters who are "overlooking some other bigoted racist aspect of this president," Lemon suggested Tuesday, may be financially motivated.
"Think you're going to get a tax cut?...How much money is it worth to you that you have someone who is a racist in office?," he said. "There isn't that much money in the world for me and for people who are discriminated against."
The headline on this article has been updated.
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