Nina Turner Invited Back To CNN After Hilary Rosen Drew Criticism For MLK Exchange

Former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, a co-chair of Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) presidential campaign, has been invited back to CNN’s “Cuomo Prime Time,” following her heated exchange with Hilary Rosen, a political commentator for the network.

″[Chris Cuomo] has invited me back on his show @CuomoPrimeTime to have a deeper discussion,” Turner tweeted on Friday. “I look forward to this opportunity. Getting understanding is so important. Thank you Cuomo!!!!”

Rosen, who has endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden for president, was widely criticized for attempting to “whitesplain” Martin Luther King Jr. to Turner during a segment of the show on Thursday.  

While discussing the Vermont senator’s progressive policies, Turner noted that they were “in the spirit” of King, who “warned us — us being the Black community — about white moderates,” she said. 

Turner referenced King’s famous 1963 “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” in which the late civil rights icon wrote that he had been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate” in a letter to eight white Alabama clergy members. 

Rosen, when asked to address criticisms directed toward Biden, took the opportunity to attempt to correct Turner’s King reference, saying, “That’s actually not what Martin Luther King said.” 

The Democratic strategist went on to tell Turner she didn’t have the “standing” to invoke the late civil rights icon, after Turner correctly referenced King’s mention of the Ku Klux Klan in his letter, in which he wrote that the Black community’s “great stumbling block” is instead “the white moderate, who is more devoted to ‘order’ than to justice.” (Read King’s letter in full here.)

Rosen later apologized on Twitter — which drew further criticism because she used the term “angry Black women” (a racist trope) in her apology.

“On air Thursday I said my colleague @ninaturner didn’t have standing to use MLK Jr. That was wrong. I am sorry for saying those words,” she wrote in a since-deleted tweet. “Pls no need to defend me and attack angry black women. They have standing. I always need to listen more than I talk. We rise together. ”  

Rosen apologized again on Friday, saying that she wasn’t calling Turner an “angry Black woman,” and was “getting tons of ugly messages to keep fighting her using that phrase.” 

“I was trying to tell people to STOP. Cause I KNEW I needed to apologize,” she added in the tweet.

On Friday, Sanders called on Biden to apologize to Turner for Rosen’s remarks on “Cuomo Prime Time.”

″@JoeBiden must accept responsibility for his surrogate telling our campaign co-chair Senator @NinaTurner that she doesn’t have standing to invoke the words of Dr. King,” Sanders said on Twitter. “That is unacceptable and Joe must apologize to Nina and all the people of color supporting our campaign.”

Discussing Sanders’ call for an apology with Mehdi Hasan, a columnist at The Intercept, Cuomo noted on air on Friday that Rosen doesn’t work for the Biden campaign; she has just endorsed the presidential candidate. 

“A lot of the ‘Bernie bros,’ who are rightly accused of being toxic or using bad language, they don’t work for Bernie either, but the media and a lot of the Democratic candidates insisted Bernie take responsibility for them … So I’m not sure why there’s a double standard in play here,” Hasan responded. 

Cuomo noted earlier in the segment on Friday that both Rosen and Turner have been invited to return to “Cuomo Prime Time.” 

(Disclosure: Rosen worked as political director at The Huffington Post between 2008 and 2010.)