CRAIG MELVIN (HOST): Is it reasonable to expect that this a president who is going to continue to use this particular case to advance some sort of political agenda?

ZERLINA MAXWELL (MSNBC POLITICAL ANALYST): Yes, and Newt Gingrich articulated this earlier today. He said, essentially, if Mollie's name becomes a household name, that will help Republicans in November because the president uses these racial wedge issues to excite his base and to get them excited about voting for Republicans. And I think that is a really sad state of affairs because what happened to Mollie is tragic. Certainly the court system is going to kick into gear and hopefully there will be justice in terms of trying to hold the person allegedly responsible accountable for this crime. But I would also say this: Nia Wilson is also an American who was killed, tragically, for no apparent reason in Oakland, California recently. A Black teenager. And there wasn't the same amount of coverage --

MELVIN: By an undocumented immigrant?

MAXWELL: Not by an undocumented immigrant, but allegedly by a white supremacist. So that's a different type of crime, but you didn't hear anything from the president. You didn't see anybody out talking about it in terms of it being a crisis that we needed to solve immediately. But white supremacist violence is actually up, while undocumented immigrants commit fewer crimes than United States citizens. So that's just the context for this particular story in this news cycle. It's tragic, but also we need to understand that the president is using it and exploiting it for his political purposes.

Related:

CNN: Man leads police to body, faces murder charge in Mollie Tibbetts case

Mediaite: Newt Gingrich is openly politicizing Mollie Tibbetts' death to help GOP in midterms

Previously:

Cable news has hardly mentioned the murder of Nia Wilson

Fox host and guest use alleged murder of a college student by an immigrant to push for a border wall