Criticism over President Donald Trump’s controversial remarks about former President Andrew Jackson and the origins of the Civil War are “overblown,” CNN contributor Jeffrey Lord said Tuesday.
“He’s just answering questions,” said Lord, an outspoken Trump supporter, on CNN’s “New Day.” “This Civil War issue, I think, has been way overblown.”
Lord went on to say the President was attempting to argue Jackson — a slave owner — would have been more decisive in ending slavery had he arrived in the White House many years later.
“He used the phrase, ‘If Andrew Jackson had been there a little later,’ meaning if he had been president, he might have been a whole lot less passive than (President) James Buchanan was,” Lord said.
“That’s a perfectly reasonably historical point of view,” he added.
CNN contributor Symone Sanders fired back, pointing out that Jackson himself was a slave owner.
“Except that Andrew Jackson was a plantation owner that also owned slaves,” Sanders said.
On Monday, Trump told Salena Zito, a Washington Examiner reporter and CNN contributor, on Sirius XM radio that Jackson, the populist rabble-rousing president with whom he has claimed political kinship, had strong thoughts about the Civil War — even though he died 16 years before the conflict broke out.
“He was really angry that — he saw what was happening with regard to the Civil War,” Trump said. “He said, ‘There’s no reason for this.’ “
Trump continued, “People don’t realize, the Civil War — you think about it, why? People don’t ask that question. But why was there a Civil War? Why could that one not have been worked out?”
The President took to Twitter Monday evening to dig in on his comments.
“President Andrew Jackson, who died 16 years before the Civil War started, saw it coming and was angry. Would never have let it happen!” Trump wrote.