Van Jones Cringes at Pete Buttigieg’s Awkward Outreach to African-Americans: ‘He Falls Off a Cliff’ on Racial Issues

CNN political analyst Van Jones called out Mayor Pete Buttigieg’s struggling efforts to appeal to black voters, literally cringing at the Democratic candidate’s awkward outreach and rhetoric.

Speaking with the network’s post-debate panel, Jones, along with political analyst Nia-Malika Henderson, criticized the campaign and Buttigieg’s personal attempts to analogize his struggles for acceptance as a gay man with the Civil Rights movement’s fight for equity for African-Americans.

“When the issues around black stuff comes up, it’s more studied. It’s more prepared. It’s more careful. It feels like he feels he’s on some thin ice, and I just don’t understand why,” Jones said. “I understand he’s trying to make that connection, say, ‘Listen, I get it. In my own country, being somebody who is gay, I’ve got a shared sense of kind of fellow feeling there.’ But he doesn’t do it right, because then you start feeling kind of tense when he says it. Are you claiming — he doesn’t have the touch. He needs to get the touch. He may get the touch. The reality is he’s a great candidate. He’s growing. To your point, he’s growing in front of our very eyes. But he falls off a cliff when he hits these racial issues.”

Henderson later followed up, contrasting Buttigieg’s failure to connect with African-American votes with former Vice President Joe Biden, who has maintained steady support among black voters in Democratic primary polls so far.

“I also think there’s something sort of more subtle that maybe black people can pick up on that other people can’t. Biden seems like he’s comfortable around black people, right?” she noted. “Pete Buttigieg doesn’t seem like he’s spent much time around black people. And I don’t know how you get over that. I don’t know why he hasn’t really spent much time around black people. I don’t think that’s something you can sort of make up with a Douglass Plan or, you know, going to Morehouse [College] and taking pictures with a bunch of Morehouse students. I don’t know. And there’s obviously low name I.D. and maybe there’s not-the-electable thing. I think to your point, he just doesn’t seem comfortableable talking about these issues.”

Watch the video above, via CNN.