In an interview released Friday, Al Jazeera journalist Medhi Hasan takes President Donald Trump's economic advisor Stephen Moore to task for refusing to call the president's comments on Muslims and women of color "racist."
Moore, an economist with a long record of working for right-wing think tanks and media outlets, was one of the president's picks for the Federal Reserve board but withdrew after years of misogynistic writings consumed the news around his nomination.
"When the president tells four women of color, members of Congress, to, quote, go back to where they came from, even though four of them, all of them, are U.S. citizens and three were born in the U.S., is that not racist?" Hasan asks Moore.
"I know Donald Trump," Moore replies to jeers from the audience. "He is no racist."
For the new season of @AJHeadtoHead today, I pushed top Trump adviser Stephen Moore on why he won't say Trump's "send them back" remarks are racist. I did at least get him to admit that @realDonaldTrump is "too divisive" - watch the preview clip:pic.twitter.com/vpDPfRVAo5
— Mehdi Hasan (@mehdirhasan) October 4, 2019
Hasan presses the point over the next few minutes and finally gets Moore to concede that the president's words are "divisive"—though the White House advisor stops short of condemning the president.
Watch the fulll interview:
