During a contentious exchange on CNN about adding a citizenship question to the 2020 Census, former Trump associate White House counsel Jim Schultz repeatedly refused to answer when pressed by commentator Kirsten Powers to give his own personal opinion as to why President Donald Trump is so adamant about including it.

After talking over each other, and host Anderson Cooper, Powers broke in and directly challenged Schultz to contradict her claim that the Trump administration is just using the question as a ruse to drive down minority representation.

“Just stop. Just answer this question. Are you saying that it is not part of — it is not being driven by the desire to drive down population numbers? Is that actually your position?” Powers bluntly asked.

“I think the position here is the one that the court succinctly stated was that the purpose of this was to determine the citizens in this country, how many of them are — the people in this country, how many of them are actually citizens,” Schutlz said, deflecting.

“You’re saying that like — that that’s what you believe?” Power pressed.

“I’m stating what the court said and what the justices of the court said. If we’re looking at this, the Commerce Secretary set forth a rational. Roberts didn’t buy it. They asked him to come back and give a rational…” Schultz began, again dodging the question.

At this point, Cooper cut in to try and pry a real answer loose: “She’s asking what you think. Do you want to say what you think? Do you think this is about driving down reputation, particularly in communities of color?”

The third time was not a charm, however.

“I’m a lawyer. I deal with facts and law,” Schultz said, tap-dancing away from candor. “And in this case I’m not going to speculate what they’re thinking and what their intentions are. I can tell you what they said in the briefs and they made strong arguments in the brief and won on most of the issues. What I think and what I think — what I think is it really doesn’t matter. It’s what’s in those briefs and the arguments that the lawyers.”

Her point proven, Powers merely added: “I think it’s telling that he will not answer the question directly.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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