On Thursday’s edition of MSNBC’s The Cycle the group discussed Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney‘s assertion that President Obama should “take [his] campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.” Co-host Touré saw what he believes to be explicit racial connotations beneath what Romney was saying, calling it the “niggerization” of the campaign.

“That really bothered me,” he said. “You notice he said anger twice. He’s really trying to use racial coding and access some really deep stereotypes about the angry black man. This is part of the playbook against Obama, the ‘otherization,’ he’s not like us.”

“I know it’s a heavy thing, I don’t say it lightly, but this is ‘niggerization,'” Touré said to the apparent shock of his co-panelists. “You are not one of us, you are like the scary black man who we’ve been trained to fear.”

Naturally this led to a battle between Touré and conservative co-host S.E. Cupp. She took particular issue with the fact that Touré admitted that VP Joe Biden‘s “chains” comments were divisive, but is now calling Romney a “racist” for saying the Obama campaign is “angry.”

“Do you see how dishonest that is?” she asked.

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Touré denied calling anyone a racist, which prompted Cupp to say, “Certainly you were implying that Mitt Romney and the base will respond to this dog-whistle, racially-charged coding, and hate Obama, the angry black man?”

“Absolutely,” he replied.

“That’s so irresponsible,” Cupp answered back.

“This is not a revolutionary comment,” Touré later said. “This is a constituency all-white party that rejects the black vote.”

“You have two white guys in Joe Biden and Mitt Romney,” Cupp clarified. “Joe Biden made the overtly racial comment and has a history of making bigoted remarks. Mitt Romney was responding to the comment. Yet he is the one responsible for the whole Republican history of racism in politics?”

“That’s not what Touré is saying,” co-host Krystal Ball interjected. “You’re twisting his words.”

“No, he can speak for himself,” Cupp shot back.

“He’s using the playbook Republicans have been using for decades now,” Touré concluded.

UPDATE: Touré apologized for his remarks on Friday’s edition of The Cycle. Video here.

Take a look below, via MSNBC:

UPDATE: The Romney campaign response developing here. A source says the campaign is in talks with NBC News executives.

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