President Obama’s public condemnation of Donald Trump’s being “unfit” to serve as his successor worked like a well-planned charm. The Republican nominee, whose penchant for responding to his critics on social media is common knowledge, issued a statement decrying Obama and Hillary Clinton’s many failures. His campaign team and media surrogates, who were already unloading all kinds of attacks on the Khan family, also threw their hats into the ring. This included former campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, who tried to revisit the birther controversy.
To Lewandowski’s credit, he wasn’t the first CNN Tonight panel member to dig up the issue. That honor belongs to Angela Rye, a CNN political commentator, who mentioned the birther movement in response to the Trump surrogate’s criticism of Obama’s remarks. Lewandowski was arguing that the president’s participation in Clinton’s campaign meant he was “fair game,” and that he shouldn’t use his office (i.e. East Room of the White House) to engage in “partisan attacks.” Cue Rye:
RYE: Donald Trump has been attacking the president long before he began campaigning for this important office. He is the one who was the spokesperson of the birther movement, and was saying the president was an Affirmative Action admittee of Harvard…
LEWANDOWSKI: Well did he ever release those transcripts from Harvard? … You raised the issue! I’m just asking.
The look on Rye’s face was enough to ensure that no one — neither host Don Lemon nor any of the other panelists — would interrupt her Lemonade inspired rebuttal of Lewandowski’s attempt to go full birther. “Corey, in this moment I’m going to ‘Beyonce’ you. ‘Boy, bye!’ You so outta line right now.”
For those of you unfamiliar with the Beyonce lyric, it comes from the Lemonade song “Sorry.” The oft-repeated main line of the chorus? “Sorry, I ain’t sorry.”
(Via New York Magazine)