On Tuesday’s edition of CNN’s Situation Room, Hawaii Democrat Senator Mazie Hirono declared that President Trump is using not just racist “dog whistles” in his terminology, but “bullhorns.”
“We should stop giving him the benefit of the doubt that he doesn’t understand what he means when he refers to nationalists or any of these other terms,” she argued. “These are not just dog whistles, but it’s bullhorns. It’s racism. It’s basically, for many people, it’s anti-Semitic. It’s white supremacy. He knows very well what he’s talking about, even if he professes otherwise.”
Regarding Trump’s claim that there are Middle Easterners in the migrant caravan headed toward the southern U.S. border, Hirono said, “It’s just yet another example of how he stokes fear and loathing into the electorate. He knows he’s speaking to his base.”