Dem blasts GOP strategist for 'intellectual dishonesty' during heated CNN discussion

A former Democratic lawmaker sparred with a Republican strategist Monday night on CNN over a clip of Donald Trump saying Haitian migrants need to leave the country as MAGA supporters chant "Send them back!"

Former South Carolina Rep. Bakari Sellers squared off against Erin Perrine, press communications director for Trump's 2020 campaign, on CNN's "NewsNight."

Host Abby Phillip played a clip of Trump's event in Pennsylvania earlier Monday in which he asked supporters, "Do you think Springfield will ever be the same? I don't think so. The fact is, I'll say it now, you have to get them the hell out. You have to get them out. I'm sorry."

The crowd then chants, "Send them back!"

The statement comes after Trump and running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance, promoted a racist and baseless conspiracy theory that Haitian migrants in the city were abducting and eating peoples' pets.

"He won't let it go," Phillip tells the panel.

ALSO READ: The simple yet powerful way Tim Walz just exposed Donald Trump

"That's embarrassing," said panelist Jamele Hill, contributor at The Atlantic, accusing Trump of putting a "target on that fine community's back."

"A community that has done nothing but contribute and do all the things that you say that you want legal immigrants to do," she said.

When Phillips said Trump was not making a nuanced argument about immigrants or the White House's role in the process of legalization, Sellers said Trump simply isn't able to make a nuanced argument.

Sellers said Trump appeared more disciplined against President Joe Biden. But with the election less than 50 days away and polls showing him in a dead heat with Vice President Kamala Harris, the playbook has changed.

"The playbook is back to the normal isms that Donald Trump uses. He uses racism and xenophobia as political currency. It's us versus them. Do you want your country to become browner, or not?"

He notes that Ukranian and Irish migrants aren't the immigrants facing status questions or calls to "send them back."

Perrine pushed back on Sellers though, noting Trump also uses the term "paddywagons," a term that some in the Irish-American community also find offensive.

Perrine noted she's heard "Lock him up!" chants at Democratic rallies, referring to Trump's criminal cases, and said incendiary rhetoric is a problem on both sides.

Hill and Sellers scoffed at the statement.

"It's not the same," said Sellers, shaking his head.

"It's not even remotely the same," said Hill.

When Perrine tried to clarify she was not trying to commit "What-About-ism," Sellers retorts, "But that's what you did."

AS Perrine tries to insist she wasn't saying "one was better than the other," Sellers replies: "I think that's a level of intellectual dishonesty."

"No, I don't think it is," Perrine fires back.

Sellers noted that brown and Black Haitians are coming from a country devastated by natural disasters and political corruption, and are coming to the U.S. to contribute to society.

"The people who they work for say they're good citizens," he said. "The people they pay taxes to say they're good citizens. And then you bastardize them by saying they are the least amount of human beings. By saying they eat our dogs and eat our cats. That is not the intellectual equivalence."

Watch the tense clip below or at this link.