CNN commentator Bakari Sellers referred to President Donald Trump's Super Bowl ad touting his action on criminal justice reform, featuring Alice Johnson, as Trump’s "I freed a Negro ad." The comments came during a panel on "Cuomo Primetime" about Trump's State of the Union address.
"In politics, you are what you say and do in a pattern of moments. If this president were to hold this course – he doesn't talk about impeachment, he didn't really say anything about the Democrats, he did the thing with the handshake with Pelosi, but his character is what it is is," host Chris Cuomo said. "How threatening is that to your chances of beating him?"
"Listen, I think that a few people on air before me have gotten this a little wrong in the way they casted the net of Donald Trump's speech tonight," Sellers replied. "Donald Trump was speaking to group one and group one B. Group one is white women. Tonight he was attempting at same thing during the Super Bowl ad, which I found to be decently offensive, with Alice Johnson. I refer to as the 'I freed a Negro ad."
CNN commentator Scott Jennings was visibly shocked the words came out of Sellers' mouth.
"He’s trying to soften himself. He's trying to soften himself so white women in suburbs actually come out and vote for him. If he gets a small bump in white women and white college-educated women that will go a long way," Sellers explained. "The other thing he is trying to do is suppress the black vote. I don't think Donald Trump believes he can gain a large number of black voters. He can probably gain some with black men but what he’s trying to do is suppress the vote, drive the vote down continuously."
"That is a recipe to win and he will be extremely dangerous if he does that," Sellers said.
Jennings shook his head in disagreement.
"Donald Trump's speech tonight was geared towards that and we talk about the system and the pattern, if he keeps up the pattern of trying to suppress the black vote and just do something enduring to drive the turnout of white women or shrink the margin in which he gets defeated, you know, that's a recipe of another four years of Donald Trump," Sellers explained.
During a post #SOTU segment on CNN, @Bakari_Sellers said he believes' @realDonaldTrump's Super Bowl ad about criminal justice reform featuring Alice Johnson was the "I freed a negro ad." pic.twitter.com/8L0bqgJZ3V
— Townhall.com (@townhallcom) February 5, 2020
Interestingly enough, Sellers replied to the tweet of the clip on our Twitter account, reaffirming what he said.
Y’all mad I’m telling the truth. https://t.co/DSOYtbaOFj
— Bakari Sellers (@Bakari_Sellers) February 5, 2020
No, Bakari. We're not mad. You're the one who is mad. Democrats have repeatedly promised the black community they'd deliver on criminal justice reform. In fact, it was almost assumed that criminal justice reform was part of the Democratic Party platform. And, once again, the Democrats failed the black community. President Trump delivered on something Democrats couldn't. Even Van Jones went so far as to praise Trump for the First STEP Act.