Senior Adviser to Never-Trump group The Lincoln Project Tara Setmayer attacked former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley as just another in a long line of Republican “tokens” over her campaign launch video and speech.

Haley announced her candidacy for president Tuesday with a bio-heavy campaign video that noted Haley’s upbringing in a segregated city by Indian immigrant parents, while also criticizing her political opponents for their focus on racial issues.

On Saturday’s edition of MSNBC’s Alex Witt Reports, host Alex Witt asked Setmayer to comment on an NBC News article entitled “Nikki Haley’s campaign opened with an appeal to race. Some Indian Americans say it won’t work.”

Setmayer compared Haley to other Republican “tokens” who are used “to deflect away from policies and positions that are actually exclusive of those communities” — and  named Ben Carson and Herschel Walker:

ALEX WITT: There’s a new NBC column that says Nikki Haley’s campaign opened with an appeal to race. Some Indian-Americans are saying it won’t work. The executive director of the API, Victory Alliance, told NBC “I think people can see through her much better now than ever before so she can try to talk about her immigrant background. I think it’s going to fall flat.” Do you agree with that? I mean, and if so, why won’t that work for her?

TARA SETMAYER: Well, I mean, I can’t speak on behalf of the Indian-American community because I’m not part of that. But I can see where the comparisons would be to where oftentimes Republicans will try to use immigrants or minorities as tokens to try to deflect away from policies and positions that are actually exclusive of those communities. And Nikki Haley is no different than a lot of the rest of them.

And it’s the same thing with the Ben Carsons of the world or or the Herschel Walkers, where they think all if they just put a black candidate up there to say, oh, there’s no more racism, that white people go, “Yeah, see, that’s okay, we’re not racist anymore. Because the Black guy said, there is no more racism.”

You know, it’s just it’s really incredulous and quite transparent. And when Nikki Haley says that, oh, you know, she grew up on the other side of the tracks and how the tracks divided the community. Who the hell does she think put the tracks there? There’s no racism in America? I guess the tracks showed up through immaculate construction.

I mean, it’s it’s an asinine position and very transparent. So I think people will see right through it because she’s actually not very good at this.

ALEX WITT: Hmm. Interesting.

Watch above via MSNBC’s Alex Witt Reports.

The post WATCH: Never-Trumper On MSNBC Attacks Nikki Haley As Just Another In Line of Republican ‘Tokens’ first appeared on Mediaite.

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