title:  WATCH: CNN Majorly F*cks Up, Has White Supremacist Weigh In On DACA Panel
text: Donald Trump is the first authoritarian president we have ever had. Of course, one of the hallmarks of autocrats is that they destabilize trust in the free press and eventually attempt to squash the Fourth Estate altogether. Trump has done a remarkable job of implementing this dangerous autocratic strategy with his base. Therefore, it is absolutely vital that news outlets make sure that everything they do is on the up and up. This is especially true of outlets that are favorite targets of Trump s such as CNN.Unfortunately, it seems that CNN is dropping the ball there in a major way. Case in point   they had a white supremacist sit on a nationally televised panel about the debate over whether or not the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program   otherwise known as DACA   should be rescinded by the Trump Administration.On Monday s edition of its early show, CNN had a panel discussion regarding the program that protects hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants who were brought here through no fault of their own by their parents and know no other home. On the panel were Democratic strategist Maria Cordona, and Dan Stein of the Foundation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). However, there was one particularly disturbing detail that CNN left out of Stein s introduction: That his organization has a long history of trafficking in white supremacy. Luckily for the sake of public information, Think Progress s Judd Legum did it for them. Legum writes: CNN did not mention FAIR s deep roots in white supremacy, eugenics, and white nationalism. The organization was founded by John Tanton, who founded FAIR to keep America  a majority-white population. Heidi Beirich of the Southern Poverty Law Center says of the founder of FAIR: [Tanton] has corresponded with Holocaust deniers, former Klan lawyers and the leading white nationalist thinkers of the era. He introduced key FAIR leaders to the president of the Pioneer Fund, a white supremacist group set up to encourage  race betterment,  at a 1997 meeting at a private club. He wrote a major funder to encourage her to read the work of a radical anti-Semitic professor   to  give you a new understanding of the Jewish outlook on life    and suggested that the entire FAIR board discuss the professor s theories on the Jews. Judd Legum goes on to say that Stein, said he believes America s immigration laws, which he regards as too permissive, are an effort  to retaliate against Anglo-Saxon dominance.  He said that the current generation of immigrants is engaged in  competitive breeding  and that  [m]any of them hate America, hate everything the United States stands for. As for Stein s contributions to the CNN panel on Monday morning? He insisted that DACA is nothing more than arbitrary amnesty program,  and said that Democrats should be forced to help the GOP secure the borders, build the wall, interior enforcement and cut chain migration  if they want to protect the DACA kids. In other words, make sure we keep America mostly white. No more brown people for this guy.Now, CNN has some great anchors. They really do. Personally, I try to tear myself away from MSNBC in order to watch them sometimes   particularly OutFront with Erin Burnett and The Lead with Jake Tapper. That being said, I have never been comfortable with their penchant for allowing Trump supporters to spew unchecked lies on the air. In this climate of deteriorating confidence in the Fourth Estate and confusion about what is and isn t true, these practices are hardly in the interest of the public good. Now, they have white supremacists as panelists, somehow believing that these views should be given mainstream legitimacy.Get your act together CNN. This is why I definitely prefer MSNBC.Watch this appalling discussion below:Featured image via video screen capture