BROOKE BALDWIN (HOST):  Ed, you get the first one, which is -- this is what I was wondering, of all the pundits and commentators and columnists out there who have gone on the record to call the president a racist, why do you think he chose to go after this particular incident? 

ED MARTIN: Well, I was going to say, I was thinking as we were waiting to be on, ever since ESPN made Chris Berman do less coverage, I've kinda tuned off of ESPN. I think I've loved-- Chris Berman never played football and I like that. But look I think ESPN is a private company and they should be pressured by others like they are doing, like the president's doing, in any way they want, but it's a private company. 

And Sanders said, Sarah said, it's a private company, they should have their own policies. I think they will pay a price with people, but look, I think the president, he is allowed to be annoyed. It is like as a conservative when Senator Flake writes a book, it's really unpleasant, and then everyone is supposed to say, well, he's a Republican, get along. The president is mad at him --

BALDWIN: Sure, sure, I'm with you on him being allowed to be annoyed, but to your point of being a private entity, think Ed to all the magazine covers, I think we had a couple The New Yorker and Time and The Economist, the covers of the magazines calling him a racist, why didn't at the time, the White House, Sarah Sanders, vis-a-vis the president, demand that those white editors be fired? 

MARTIN: Oh, I guess I had not even thought of who the editors were or what the color was. I think part of this could be honestly, I think, that the president likes Curt Schilling. And Curt Schilling for those of us that watched him get fired for saying something about the transgender bathrooms, it's kinda like wait, you guys had a standard there. I didn't think -- I didn't even know the other editors had said he's racist for white or black. I don't know. I don't think that's the factor. 

I think it is more like -- and look the president loves this kind of stuff. He loves the counter-punch. And this was a popular -- it's a popular issue. It's gotten a lot of traction and he's in the middle of it. He likes that. And I think more power to him, but I don't think ESPN has to fire him -- her because the president says so. But let's see what happens. 

BALDWIN: Marc, how do you see it?

MARC LAMONT HILL: A couple of things. One, I'm sure that you didn't consider race or the race of the editors as a factor. I think that is part of the extraordinary privilege of whiteness is not having to consider race or the role that race may play in a particular incident. 

You are also right that it's a private company. And part of what federal law prohibits is a member of congress or the member of the executive branch or an employee of the executive branch influence the employment of a private citizen based on their political views. So when I hear a press secretary and/or a president encourage someone to be disciplined or fired for their political views, that to me is not only egregious abuse of power but it's also just unseemly. 

And yet the president likes the counter-punch. I do find it troublesome that out of all the people who have called the president racist in America, that they decided to kind of locate their power and focus on this one black woman, that is troublesome to me. 

And then there's this other piece of the pod, the big elephant in the room which is that people seem to be more upset about people are calling Donald Trump racist than wrestling with the fact that Donald Trump may actually be racist. To me, that is the more fundamental issue we should be wrestling with. Let's test the truth claim, not whether or not she should say it or not. And I support Jemele Hill fully, 100 percent. I think she was right. I think her analysis was right. And I don't think there was anything inappropriate about what she said or did. 

Previously:

How Donald Trump emboldened Charlottesville white supremacists

Symone Sanders calls out Trump supporter's false equivalence between white supremacists and antifascist protesters

On CNN, Trump supporter downplays Nazi violence in Charlottesville because no one got shot by white supremacists