House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told the Washington Post’s national political reporter Robert Costa on Thursday that President Donald Trump was “glorifying white supremacy” by refusing to rename U.S. military bases that are named after Confederate generals.
Costa asked Pelosi, “Should art depicting slave owners, including our nation’s Founding Fathers, come down in the country?”
Pelosi replied, “Are you talking about the patriarch of our country George Washington, the author of our Declaration of Independence Thomas Jefferson? No. I don’t think they should come down.”
POLL: 56% Of Americans Oppose Changing Confederate Named Military Bases https://t.co/CqHzpyFurs
— Daily Caller (@DailyCaller) June 19, 2020
Pelosi on military bases named after Confederate generals: ‘They were statements of white supremacy. Those names have to go’
“I do think, though, in the Capitol where we have members of the Confederacy who served as Speaker, their painting should come down,” the House Speaker said. “I do think in the Capitol were we have statures of the president of the Confederacy and the vice president of the Confederacy along by what that said about people and our country, I think they should come out.”
“It’s not about one issue of if at the time they owned slaves,” she claimed. “It’s about what did they do about it. ”
Pelosi continued, “And in terms of the military bases, these bases were named years after the Civil War. They were statements of white supremacy. Those names have to go. Even if they are not named something else, the names have to go.”
Where does all this end? Renaming “Washington” DC?
And by the way, what a misleading headline!
“Pelosi orders removal of four portraits of Confederate House speakers from Capitol”
They were Speakers of the House for the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.https://t.co/jPae7IGGa7
— Thomas Massie (@RepThomasMassie) June 18, 2020
Pelosi: ‘I think the president is once again on the wrong track by not understanding that you don’t glorify white supremacy’
“I think the president is once again on the wrong track by not understanding that you don’t glorify white supremacy in our country and have and have it be perpetrated once it is uncovered,” she said.
The Democrat leader added, “These Confederates, Jefferson Davis, Alexander Stephens, they committed treason against the United States in the name of slavery. I think that’s a different story. But you know what, subject everything to scrutiny and make a decision, but I do think we should do it in a safer way rather than in a more dangerous way.”