A CNN guest panel got heated Monday when Democratic strategist Keith Boykin told former Republican official Paris Dennard to "shut up."
The panel discussed the white supremacist violence in Charlottesville, Va. over the weekend, and the controversial initial response by President Donald Trump, when he at first condemned hatred "on many sides."
Trump did condemn white supremacists by name on Monday, although critics charged his remarks came too late.
Boykin said that he was ashamed of Dennard "as an African American," prompting Dennard to defend his identity as a black man. Boykin took it further, asking, "Are you?"
"Keith, don't go there," Dennard said. "Do not go there. I know what it means to be a black man in this country. I know and I experience racism on a regular basis by being a Trump supporter and by being a proud American who happens to be a Republican."
Dennard described his family and experiences as a black man as Boykin pressed him further on whether he really faces racism. Boykin told him to "calm down" for "going off the rails."
"Get him under control," Dennard told flustered CNN host Brooke Baldwin after Boykin repeatedly questioned his legitimacy as a black man. "I will not come on this show and be disrespected and have my ethnicity attacked."
Baldwin tried to get them to "take that conversation, have it off camera," but they continued bickering. Then Boykin demanded Dennard "shut up."
"Paris, shut up, please, for God's sake," Boykin said.
"OK so, you're going to let him tell me to shut up?" Dennard asked Baldwin. "Ken Cuccinelli did that [to] Symone Sanders today, that was a meltdown."
Dennard was referring to another exchange in which a CNN guest told the woman he was debating to shut up earlier today. Cuccinelli is the former GOP attorney general of Virginia, while Sanders was the national press secretary for the presidential campaign of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I., Vt,).