Super Tuesday 2016: CNN's Van Jones and Jeffrey Lord go head-to-head during live coverage

Most of the people who tuned into the Super Tuesday coverage on CNN were looking forward to a bitter battle between Republican Party candidates and those of the Democrats. But while everyone focussed on Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton, the news channel's political analysts started a war of words of their own, that too while they were live on air.

Liberal commentator Van Jones and Trump supporter Jeffrey Lord went head-to-head at the channel's New York studio on 1 March. They argued on the possibility of the GoP presidential candidate becoming America's next president and the race factor in his campaign.

Starting off with Trump's association with the Ku Klux Klan, Jones said, "When he is playing funny with the Klan [Ku Klux Klan], that is not cool," Jones started. "I know this man, when he gets passionate about terrorism. I know how he talks about terrorism. The Klan is a terrorist organisation...

"You have to take a serious look at the fact that this man is playing fast and loose and footsie. When he talks about terrorism he gets passionate and says, 'no, this is wrong', but when you talks about the Klan, (he says) 'Oh, I don't know... I don't know'."

Before allowing Lord a chance to interrupt him, Jones went on and brought out the topic of Reverend Jeremiah Wright's divisive and anti-Semitic comments and how Lord used them to counter criticism of Trump's response to questions about KKK.

"And then you came on the air and said that this was like when Rev Wright was speaking. But Rev Wright never lynched anybody. Rev Wright never killed anybody. Rev Wright never put anybody on a post. And you guys play these word games and it's wrong to do in America," Jones said.

At this point, Lord finally managed to get a word in and opined, "It is wrong to understand that these [KKK] are not leftists. And you don't hide and say that's not the base of the Democratic Party."

Calling on the group's involvement with the Democratic Party through history, Lord pointed out, "That has been the military arm, the terrorist arm of the Democratic party according to historians. For God's sake, read your history."

Jones then directed the debate to the Central Park jogger case in which four black men and one Hispanic were wrongfully convicted of raping a woman. "The whole thing with the Central Park jogger kids, he (Trump) got the entire city of New York whipped up that these kids had done something wrong. And then when he was wrong, he never apologized to them."

At this point, Lord accused Jones of using the race card to cause division among the people. "Van, what you're doing right here, what you're doing here is dividing people," Lord said. "We're all Americans here, Van. This is what liberals do. You are dividing people by race. This is what liberalism is all about," he added.

"The Klan divides by race, the Klan killed people by race," Jones interjected before Lord added, "They did it to support the progressive agenda, hello!"