Fox & Friends host Pete Hegseth should have learned his lesson about defending President Donald Trump’s racist tweet telling four Democratic congresswomen of color to love America or leave it when he used a variation of it in front of Geraldo Rivera. Now he’s being humiliated by another colleague.
Over the weekend, Hegseth told Geraldo that he agrees with Trump that Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), Ayanna Pressley (D-Mass.), Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.) and Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) should go back to the countries they from, remarking that they should “love it or leave it.”
Three of the four lawmakers were born in the United States and all four are American citizens. They don’t hate America, but they believe it can be better and that’s why they are criticizing the institutional racism and inequality that Trump apparently thinks make America great.
Geraldo did not like what Hegseth or Trump said, and that’s why he can no longer defend Trump.
And Fox News host Harris Faulkner did not appreciate the remarks either when Hegseth repeated them on Monday afternoon and tried to defend them.
“He’s a capitalist versus that out-and-out socialist, anti-Semitic comments that they’ve made,” Hegseth began. “He wants that foil, and I think where he comes at it is from the love of country perspective. It’s not that they just love and cherish the country so much, but they want to make some policy tinkers. It’s that they want to change the country completely, they think America is defined by our sins and it’s a bad place.”
“He didn’t say, send her back, by the way,” Hegseth continued. “It’s not just, go back. If this is so bad, love it or leave it. It’s not that you have to conform or leave it, or be silent or leave it, or be white or Republican or leave it, he is saying your foundation, especially as a member of Congress, is to love and appreciate this exceptional nation, and then make changes to it. As opposed to challenge its very core, which is what I think we get from this group.”
America’s core has been challenged repeatedly in our history, and it’s always made the country better. Abolitionists challenged the institution of slavery, which was then outlawed by the 13th Amendment. Women challenged inequality by demanding the right to vote, which they received in 1920. Franklin Roosevelt and progressives challenged unrestrained capitalism in the 1930s and created a system that turned our country into an economic superpower. African-Americans challenged Jim Crow laws and inequality during the Civil Rights movement, securing the Civil Rights Act and Voting Rights Act. Our history is full of challenges to America’s core and it makes us better. Dissent makes us better.
And Hegseth and Trump are trying to crush it.
Faulkner responded to Hegseth by swatting him like an annoying fly.
“Here’s where it gets complicated for me, because I have a dad who served in Vietnam,” Faulkner said. “When he left, people who looked like me couldn’t even drink out of the same water fountain, but he loves this country so much, he goes and fights for it and comes back and people are burning flags — but that’s all still an expression of being an American.”
“My question is, why can’t we all disagree, even in vehement ways sometimes?” she asked. “Not violent, but I think burning a flag is certainly a vehement way. Why can’t we accept all of that as part of the nomenclature and conversation, and argue it out. Why do some of us have to be deemed loving it more and hating it more?”
Hegseth then dared attack former President Obama in an insulting effort to make his point.
“Former President Obama talked about fundamentally transforming America,” he said. “If you love something, you don’t try to fundamentally transform it. You try to make it a little better.”
Seriously.
Again, America has been fundamentally transformed time and time again since the founding. The ability to have this kind of fundamental transformation is an American tradition that goes all the way back to when the Constitution was drafted, which itself represented a radical transformation of our country.
Faulkner, of course, smacked Hegseth down.
“Unless it’s Obamacare for Republicans,” she quipped.
Here’s the video via YouTube.
Obamacare made America a little better without the fundamental transformation that Trump and Hegseth are so scared of, but even Republicans hate that much change, especially if it improves people’s lives.
These four Democrats are challenging the status quo because it’s been poisoning our country for decades now and another transformation is certainly overdue. And if our country refuses to transform, America will die a slow death, and there will be no rising from the ashes more powerful than before.
Featured Image: Screenshot
