Van Jones, when pressed by CNN’s Chris Cuomo Wednesday morning, stood by comments he made regarding Donald Trump’s joint session address.
Last week, Jones called the speech Trump’s most presidential act to date and an important moment for the nation to come together as a whole, yet Cuomo asked him if he still felt the same way, given the allegations Trump raised against the Obama administration over the weekend. (VIDEO: Earnest Won’t Deny Obama Admin. Surveilled Trump Tower)
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“You’ve got to say it how you feel it in that moment,” Jones responded. “Of course later on you can later on say this, that and the other thing. Is he acting presidential now? Did he act presidential inside that speech? Some of his proposals were terrible.”
“I’m human,” he continued. “I can still get teary-eyed even in a Trump speech. I’m a military kid. My dad was in the military.”
“If you stand a widow up who lost somebody within the last month and that divided Congress — they didn’t even shake his hand, that’s how divided Congress was — you see all those people coming together.”
“You say it was cynical,” the “Messy Truth” host elaborated. “He’s manipulating her, using her. Oh like no president has ever manipulated someone. That’s presidential too, whether you like it or not.”
“I think we’ve got to get to the point where somebody does something effective, you can say it and then turn around for the next four hours, as I did, and take him apart on policy.”
“I still say it was an extraordinary moment.”