Jeffrey Lord has been spinning away from his ridiculous "Trump is the Martin Luther King of healthcare" comment all day, but let's just be honest here. There is absolutely no way to spin it. Period. It was a ridiculous thing to say, and I'm guessing he got some flack from producers at CNN, too, because he took to their website to explain himself.
His explanation is even more absurd than the original remark, and does nothing to clarify the situation at all. Which is why, apparently, CNN put him on panels on all their evening shows, so he could spin it even more than he already did.
Symone Sanders explained to Lord that healthcare is a human (and civil) right, one that allowed her father to die with good care and dignity just last month, and one that guarantees her cancer survivor mother continues to enjoy good health.
She ended by reminding him that "we cannot play with people's lives here and that's exactly what is happening right here, right now, on this program."
To which Lord replied, "Absolutely not. You're making this all up from -- you know, there is example after example. this is a strategy." Apparently that strategy remark applied to her claim that health care is a human right? What?
Lemon intervened at that point, gently asking Lord whether he ever thought about people who "are living with this every day, people who would be insulted by a comparison to someone who said he...can grab people by the genitals?"
First, the denial came. But Lemon pushed him on it. "I don't think you understand the comparison that you were making."
Don's too nice. Of course Lord understood the comparison he was making. He's an old nasty racist who knew exactly what he was saying.
Lemon pushed again. "Was it necessary? Was it necessary to make that comparison?," he pressed, "You can compare a lot of people just like Sean Spicer when he made the Hitler comparison. Was it necessary, Jeffrey?"
Symone Sanders tried to get Lord to understand that when the three of them walk out of the door every morning, they are black people, but when Jeffrey Lord walks out of the door, he's just a person. That, they explained, is privilege.
That moment was probably the most informative moment of the segment.
Lemon tried one more time to get Lord to understand that he was speaking to three coworkers who are black and trying to get him to understand why they were offended, at which point Mr. Jeffrey I-am-a-bigot Lord started waxing eloquent about his Daddy in the South standing up for a black waitress and Lemon lost it altogether.
"You are not answering my question," Lemon yelled. "I want to hear what you're saying to the co-workers you work with now, Jeffrey. We don't want to hear about something from 50 damn years ago. i want to hear now to the co-workers who are people of color you work with who were offended by your remarks!"
"You're not listening to us!"
Well, yes, Don. He never listens. He just goes on about how "colorblind" he is, and how he's no bigot because he's colorblind.
This was all spin, because he said a stupid thing and can't be bothered to admit he's stupid. But there was some small value in this segment anyway, if viewers found themselves empathizing with Sellers, Sanders and Lemon, or hearing what it means to be privileged.
This panel could have been done with Lemon, Sanders and Sellers. Jeffrey Lord added nothing.
