“I don’t know any qualified, self-respecting, you know, African-Americans who want to go work for this White House at this point,” said Democratic strategist Bakari Sellers on CNN (shown above center) on Monday night.

“You’re working for the equivalent of what many of us believe to be a George Wallace with the dog whistles that he uses,” he added, referring rudely to President Donald J. Trump.

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Steve Cortes, a former Trump campaign aide who is Hispanic, wasn’t having it.

“There is not a scintilla of evidence that this president is a racist,” said Cortes (above right). “And just because you say it every time you’re on CNN and just because this show says it every single night doesn’t make it true. And all he has done is make life better for minorities.”

Cortes explained that the lives of both blacks and Hispanics have improved demonstrably under the current administration and have responded to that with higher approval numbers for the president.

He noted also that as an Hispanic man, he was in a good position to render such an assessment about minority communities.

Host Don Lemon tried to dismiss the Cortes comments as “a bit of hyperbole,” but Cortes hit back, citing the NAACP survey.

“Donald Trump is a bigot,” Sellers declared, citing Trump’s ownership of casinos, use of “racist tropes,” and hiring of Attorney General Jeff Sessions as evidence. “He uses racism as political currency.”

“You know why you call him a bigot?” Cortes hit back. “Because you don’t want to debate policy. And this is what the Left does. The second that you call him a bigot, and supporters like me, you relegate us to the sidelines and you vilify us rather than talking about policies.”

Sellers, apparently suffering from a lapse of decorum, replied, “That’s B.S.”

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“Black approval of President Trump has doubled. Hispanic approval is up to 35 percent. If he continues to that well among minorities, by the way, the 2020 election is a slam-dunk,” said Cortes, citing the NAACP study.

Pundit Ana Navarro (above left) then jumped to defend Sellers’ contention that Trump is a bigot — and shared her own thoughts that he is “a bigot and a misogynist and a hypocrite and a racist.”

Additional “evidence” of this supposed “racism” is that Trump tweets negatively about Don Lemon, Maxine Waters, and LeBron James — and that he questions their intelligence.

“The more you guys shout ‘racism,’ by the way, the better we’re actually doing on the ground,” said Cortes.

To which Navarro replied, “Racist, racist, racist, racism, racism, racism.”

Michele Blood is a Flemington, New Jersey-based freelance writer and regular contributor to LifeZette.