Donny Deutsch finds himself in some hot water after referring to Republican Senate candidate Marco Rubio as a “coconut” on HLN on the Joy Behar Show:
The text via NewsBusters:
DEUTSCH: It’s basically it’s a Scott Brown. And once again. It’s amazing. They’re talking about presidential timber. He’s never done anything in his whole life. That’s the whole thing. It’s the blank piece of paper people can assign things to. One of the reasons, interestingly enough, I think we are a society of no right now. One of the reasons Obama got elected, because he was a blank page. You could assign hope to him.
BEHAR: That’s true.
DEUTSCH: We’re such a media frenzy, 24/7 world that almost anybody that’s been around too long, there’s so much “no” attached to it, that you almost need that blank piece of paper. That’s the new model. Like, you know, this coconut Rubio down in Florida. You know-
Deutsch now claims he didn’t mean it as racist and hadn’t even considered any racial connotations the word might have. He might not have been thinking racially, but it’s hard to imagine Deutsch calling any white politician a coconut and it making any sense without Rubio’s racial background involved.