It all began during a Thursday night segment on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time, when Turner referenced MLK’s famous Letter from Birmingham Jail, in which he wrote that he had been “gravely disappointed with the white moderate” in the struggle for civil rights.

Rosen then jumped in to “correct” Turner, who is black herself, saying this was “not what Martin Luther King said” and claiming he had only spoken about the “silence” of white moderates.

“What we have in Joe Biden is a man who is not silent,” Rosen declared.

In the letter, King actually wrote that he had reached the “regrettable conclusion” that the “great stumbling block” for black Americans was not the likes of the Ku Klux Klan, but the "white moderate, who is more devoted to 'order’ than to justice,” who advocates slow, incremental change and believes he can “set the timetable for another man’s freedom.”

When Turner attempted to explain the quote again, in an effort to place it within the context of the revolutionary politics of Sanders vs. the moderate centrism of Biden, Rosen shot back, “Don’t use Martin Luther King against Joe Biden. You don’t have that standing.”

This incensed Turner, who warned Rosen, “Don’t tell me what kind of standing I have as a black woman in America. How dare you?”

At this point, Chris Cuomo interjected in an effort to calm tensions and remind the pair they were “in the same party.” It wasn’t over yet, though.

Rosen later doubled down on Twitter, writing that like King, Biden “seeks justice” and “so must we all” — but the tweet was short-lived. She soon deleted it and replaced it with a mild late-night apology to Turner instead.

The apology then turned into a disaster, after Rosen bizarrely told her followers on Friday morning there was “no need to defend me and attack angry black women” – apparently referring to the anti-Bernie commenters that sided with her only to bash Turner.

To say the tweet caused a backlash is an understatement, which Rosen soon realized, following it up with a somewhat more robust apology saying she had “the upmost (sic) respect” for Turner and “her experience as a person of color,” and that she was “wrong” to say Turner had no standing to comment on King’s words. 

But this did not shield Rosen from a stream of accusations of “racism” and even “white supremacism” that seemed to overwhelm comments critical of Turner.

Worse still for the CNN pundit, the squabble only hit the image of the candidate she openly supports. Many tweeted the 2019 oped in Essence headlined “Joe Biden Is The White Moderate Dr. King Warned Us About.”

Bernie Sanders himself weighed in on the row, saying that not just Rosen, but Biden himself “must apologize to Nina and all the people of color supporting our campaign.”

Biden’s less-than-stellar record on race relations has come back to haunt him in recent months. He reminisced last year about his friendly relationships with staunch segregationists in Congress and was criticized for his opposition to the anti-segregation school busing policy.

It remains unclear if Rosen’s latest attempt at apology has reached Turner and if it would even be the last, as she offered in a cryptic tweet later on Friday that “I’ve called Nina to apologize directly. Whether or not she takes my call, I am still humbly sorry.”

Like this story? Share it with a friend!