Appearing as a panel member on Thursday's CNN New Day, when challenged with the fact that many cities where much of the black population live in poverty have been controlled by Democrats for many decades, liberal CNN political analyst Bakari Sellers tried to push blame onto "Southern legislatures" in "red states" -- all of which are currently Republican-controlled -- for black poverty.

After former Georgia GOP chairman Bruce Levell recalled that Milwaukee and other cities have been under a "Democrat regime" for over 60 years, host Chris Cuomo turned to Sellers and posed: "Mr. Levell swings a good stick at you, Bakari Sellers. A lot of these big cities have been Democratic-run through leadership for decades, and the status quo is unacceptable. Why continue to reward the party?"

Sellers complained of a "red herring" in Levell indicting Democrats and, ignoring the fact that even counties can be under the local control of Democrats, the liberal commentator tried to push blame to Republican-controlled legislatures:

Well, first of all, that's a red herring, and it's more complex than that, and I think Mr. Levell knows that as well. But if we want to just throw out statistics without understanding the complexity of issues of poverty, then we can talk about the fact that 95 out of the top 100 counties that are the most impoverished are in red states, and the highest concentration of impoverished African-Americans are in the Deep South under Southern legislatures.

Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Thursday, August 25, New Day on CNN: