ANDERSON COOPER: According to new reports, some Republican lawmakers could be affected, including Black South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott. He called Obama’s post the most racist thing I’ve ever seen in the White House Alayna Treene joins us now with this story.
Alaina, you reported that the president has spoken about the consequences for Republicans who oppose the position. Is it clear what this means?
Alaina Thelin: Not necessarily, but we have a good idea, Anderson, from what we heard the president say this week when we saw six Republicans part ways with him on another issue, his tariffs on Canada.
He said they could face primaries and suffer consequences in the election.
But judging from multiple sources who were with the president or who heard the comments at Mar-a-Lago last weekend, he is focusing on two lawmakers in particular.
He’s been critical of many of them, but Tim Scott was particularly annoyed that he was speaking out about that post.
The president essentially told his allies that he thought Tim Scott should be approached privately because of their close relationship. He believes it was Scott’s post, which he called racist, that prompted the entire story to explode.
I will say, from another conversation I had with sources, they said that Tim Scott actually reached out to the president privately before publishing his criticism of the post, but was not subsequently contacted. So he went ahead and posted it on social media.
Now, the president’s rhetoric is also pretty tough. I was told that Alabama Sen. Katie Britt, who has also spoken publicly about the matter, had harsher words.
I was told that he used a lot of profanity when talking about her lack of loyalty in doing so.
And said she was dead to him.
The president was very, very angry at the reaction of some of these lawmakers.
I do think it’s reflective of this growing sense that we’ve seen Republicans rarely, if ever, cross the line to break with the president during his first year in office. We’ve seen this happen more and more in recent months.
