MSNBC contributor María Teresa Kumar on Friday claimed the Russians were in President Donald Trump's ear, adding they are trying to "resurrect themselves" in the United States.
Kumar, the founding President and CEO of Voto Latino and the vice chair of Emily's List, appeared on Nicolle Wallace's afternoon program Deadline: White House, where she scolded Trump's immigration policies.
"It's not just his rhetoric because we get lost in the terrible things he says. It is his policies. The policies that he is actually underscoring," Kumar said. "He put in a citizenship question where we have the receipt showing that it was to disenfranchise the American latino vote. We have children dying in cages ... The list keeps going on and on."
Kumar went on to say Trump is not a "unifier" and accused him of "weaponizing race over being American."
"You know who else is in his ear? The Russians, and the Russians know that the stronger we are as a unified voice that it is harder for them to actually resurrect themselves," Kumar said. "Right now the Russians, what they are trying to do, is they're trying to resurrect themselves at any cost and they found someone in Donald Trump to do that for them."
Kumar's claim that Russians are in Trump's ear is nothing new on MSNBC panels.
MSNBC and CNN have breathlessly covered special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into whether the 2016 Trump presidential campaign "colluded" with Russia. Despite rampant speculation to the contrary, Mueller ultimately concluded there was no conspiracy between members of Trump's team and the Kremlin.
The investigation led another panelist on Wallace's show to say the press failed to explain the Russia probe in a "bite-sized way" to the public.
Since Trump was sworn into office in January 2017, his administration has imposed a wide range of sanctions on Russia, including the expulsion of 60 Russian diplomats in the U.S. identified as intelligence agents. He also closed a Russian consulate in Seattle. A State Department official said last year that the Trump administration's sanctions have cost the Kremlin an estimated "tens of billions of dollars."