After the brutal questioning by Rep. Artur Davis (D-AL), Rep. Keith Ellison (D-MN) followed up. This time, voting rights section chief John Tanner had a brief reply as to what he was really apologizing for, when he apologized for saying that minorities “die first.”
“I hurt people,” Tanner said quietly into the microphone.
Eventually, under Ellison’s incredulous questioning, Tanner admitted that “people age in the same way.” To which Ellison replied: “My dad is almost eighty. He’s black.”