Schumer tears into "very dangerous" Tommy Tuberville after racist comments

Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer blasted Sen. Tommy Tuberville after the Alabama lawmaker equated the term "white nationalist" with just being an American, and that it's all just a matter of opinion. (See video below, posted by The Recount.)

"It's hard to believe that the Senator from Alabama has to be corrected again. The Senator from Alabama is wrong, wrong, wrong," Schumer said. "The definition of white nationalism is not a matter of opinion."

"White nationalism, the ideology that one race is inherently superior to others, that people of color should be segregated, subjected, and relegated to second-class citizenship is racist down to its rotten core," Schumer continued, calling Tuberville's refusal to recognize white nationalism as racist "very, very dangerous."

"He is fanning the flames of bigotry and intolerance. … This isn't a joke — this is deadly serious stuff. And for a member of the United States Senate to speculate about what white nationalism means, as if it's some benign little thought experiment, is deeply and terribly disturbing," Schumer said.

Schumer then asked his Republican colleagues to do the impossible: to "urge" Tuberville to apologize — a once-upon-a-time gesture no longer recognized in the GOP.

Front page thumbnail image: Chuck Schumer / C-SPAN