A political pundit on CNN has accused the president of “lying” to the American people about his ties to the far-right.
“This is the worst fear of a lot of people, who just to be honest with you, were gaslit and told that there was no connection between Donald Trump and white nationalism,” Van Lathan said during a Saturday appearance of Table for Five.
“We were lied to,” he went on. “They’re in the White House, they’re talking to the president, and he’s listening.”
Lathan’s comments come just days after Trump is alleged to have fired several National Security Council officials on the advice of far-right conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer.
A 9/11 truther, self-described “pro-white nationalist,” and “proud Islamophobe,” Loomer reportedly singled out several of the now-fired aides for perceived disloyalty to Trump during an Oval Office discussion during which National Security Adviser Mike Waltz was also present.
Waltz has taken “full responsibility” for last week’s Signal chat fiasco, in which The Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg was added to a Signal messaging group in which senior Trump cabinet officials discussed highly sensitive details about attacks on Yemen.
Since then, Loomer had repeatedly pushed tenuous links between Waltz’s aides and Trump’s adversaries, including former President Joe Biden and the Chinese Communist Party, in particular suggesting those aides, rather than Waltz, might have been responsible for adding Goldberg to the chat.
“There’s nothing off limits anymore,” CNN host Abby Phillip said in response to Lathan’s comments on Saturday.
She further reflected that during Trump’s presidency, high-ranking GOP figures had been unnerved by the White House presence of advisors and confidants like Sidney Powell and Rudy Guliani “because of how loony they were in that time.”
“Now, it seems like nobody is saying anything at all,” she added.
