CNN anchor Jake Tapper pushed back after former Clinton White House aide Keith Boykin compared Republicans who attempted to crash Wednesday’s closed-door impeachment hearing to Klan members “assembled outside of a jail.”
Boykin ceded no ground during the Thursday “The Lead With Jake Tapper” panel discussion, instead saying he used the words “purposefully” to describe a “group of almost all white men” defending President Donald Trump, whom he considers a “racist.”
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After CNN contributor S.E. Cupp said the group looked “ridiculous,” Boykin called it a “disgraceful stunt.”
“I’ll go further than S.E. would go,” he said. “This looked like a Klan group that is assembled outside of a jail trying to get the sheriff to let them in so they could deliver their own justice to somebody who was inside. It’s not a good look for our democracy. It’s not a good look for the Republican Party.”
“Can I just say one thing, respectfully,” Tapper said, shifting back to Boykin’s remarks after CNN analyst Bianna Golodryga had weighed in. “I think the Klan metaphor was a little strong. We were talking about lynching and using that word lightly. I’m not going to debate the history with it.” (RELATED: ‘It’s A Disgrace’: Donald Trump Jr. Blasts ‘Shifty Schiff’ And His ‘Banana Republic’-Style Impeachment Inquiry)
President Trump had used the word “lynching” in a Tuesday tweet to describe the ongoing impeachment inquiry happening “without due process or fairness or any legal rights.”
“I understand,” said Boykin before pushing back. “I used it purposely, because I felt like it’s a visual problem, too, to have this group of almost all white men going in, in defense of the white man who already is, I think, by most accounts a racist. Instead of dealing with the issue of how this person is bugs his powers as of the president of the United States.”
“I just wanted to register and then we can move on,” Tapper said.