Author Coleman Hughes shut down "The View" co-host Sunny Hostin on Wednesday after she accused him of being a conservative "pawn" and "charlatan."

While discussing his new book, "The End of Race Politics: Arguments for a Colorblind America," Hughes said his argument for a color-blind society centers on treating people "without regard to race," stressing the importance of using socioeconomics — not race — as the proxy for better understanding the disadvantaged.

When Hughes laid out his argument, he received loud applause from the audience. But Hostin took issue with it.

Hostin, who recently learned that her ancestors owned slaves, claimed that Hughes' thesis is "fundamentally flawed," arguing that race is baked into socioeconomic disparity.

But Hughes disagreed, advocating for what Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. called a "bill of rights for the disadvantaged," a plan to help all impoverished Americans.

That's when the show took a bizarre turn.

Hostin claimed MLK didn't believe what Hughes had argued. Instead, she said MLK wanted reparations for black people and implied that her view carries more weight because she knows MLK's daughter. And if the faux appeal to authority wasn't enough, Hostin then attacked Hughes personally.

"Your argument for color-blindness is something that the right has co-opted," Hostin said. "So many in the black community — if I'm being honest with you, because I want to be — believe that you are being used as a pawn by the right and that you're a charlatan of sorts."

Hughes immediately asked Hostin to back her claims, and co-host Alyssa Farah Griffin interjected to note that Hughes is not a Republican.

When Hostin couldn't name a single person who she claimed had made the accusations that she alleged, Hughes corrected the record.

"I don't think I've been co-opted by anyone. I've only voted twice — both for Democrats. Although I'm an independent, I would vote for a Republican, probably a non-Trump Republican if they were compelling. I don't think there's any evidence I’ve been co-opted by anyone, and I think that's an ad hominem tactic people use to not address the important conversations we're having here," he said

"There's no evidence that I've been co-opted by anyone," Hughes explained. "I have an independent podcast. I work for CNN as an analyst. I write for the Free Press. I'm independent in all of these endeavors, and no one is paying me to say what I'm saying. I'm saying it because I feel it."

Case closed.

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