Thursday, during an interview with Washington Post national political reporter Robert Costa, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said while George Washington and Thomas Jefferson are off-limits, everything else is subject to scrutiny as far as tearing down Founders monuments.
Costa asked, “Should art depicting slave owners, including our nation’s Founding Fathers, come down in the country.”
Pelosi said, “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.”
When Costa asked what her message to protesters ripping down statues, Pelosi said, “I would say, rather than tearing down and defacing, why don’t we just have a review? Have a review in terms of, let’s take it down safely so that we’re not hurting anybody when the statue comes down or costing more money to get rid of it or get rid of the defacing of something that might not, maybe shouldn’t have been. But I think that — I’m all for it. Let’s review this. Why are we glorifying the sins of the past? That doesn’t mean because Thomas Jefferson or George Washington or others were slave owners that we should undermine what they did for our country.
She 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.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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