CNN contributor Andrew Yang blasted President Donald Trump for using a racist Asian slur to describe the coronavirus pandemic that originated in China.

Speaking on Anderson Cooper 360, the former 2020 Democratic presidential candidate said Trump’s decision to involve a clearly derogatory term was symbolic of the Trump campaign’s failed Covid-19 response and sagging poll numbers. Trump first used the “Kung flu” slur in his much-hyped but partially-attended rally on Saturday. He invoked it again to a cheering, Students for Trump crowd in Arizona on Tuesday. The president’s ugly rhetoric even forced White House counselor Kellyanne Conway, who once derided the phrase as a “racist and offensive term,” to mount an absurd, contorted defense of her boss.

“We just saw Kellyanne Conway not only defending this term which she once, you know, said was wrong to use, then turning around on an Asian American CBS News reporter blaming her for not revealing who used the term ‘Kung flu’ in the White House in the first place,” Cooper noted to Yang. “Why is it so hard for people around the president to just say something is offensive or wrong? Especially when they have already said it’s wrong and the president uses it, she contorts herself into, you know, like a pretzel trying to come up with explanations?”

“This is the bind that Trump supporters find themselves in,” Yang replied. “They have to defend something that they themselves criticized a number of days of weeks ago and we all can see exactly what is happening, Anderson, where using a term like this is just Trump’s attention to distract attention from the fact that the administration is completely botched and mishandled the coronavirus pandemic.”

“Clearly, the president has been kind of casting around for things that will ignite the base, keep everybody riled up, keep media focused on this and distracted, do you think this stuff works still?” Cooper asked, moments later. “I remember in the ’80s when I was in high school and college, I remember a lot of — there was people would use burning the American flag as the touch stone that would get everybody very upset, you know for understandable reasons but protected speech according to the court. Does it — do you think it has the same power? That’s the Trump playbook right now it seems.”

“I think it’s losing steam as we speak, Anderson, and you can see it in the polls. I mean, this is like the desperate thrashing around of a losing candidate,” Yang said. “He shows up to a rally that has a small fraction of the people they are projecting and he’s somewhat desperate, in my opinion. He can see the polls. He’s losing to Joe in all the crucial swing states. I think this is a losing path for him. He’s just degrading himself and the office of the president further by grasping at straws that aren’t actually keeping him afloat. I wish he could figure out a path that did not involve racist comments that end up throwing millions of Americans under a rhetorical bus, but here it is and hopefully we can get him out of there and call an end to this presidency in four-and-a-half short months.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.

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