Thursday, during an interview with Washington Post national political reporter Robert Costa, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) said President Donald Trump was “glorifying white supremacy” by not wanting to rename U.S. military bases named after members of the Confederacy.
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. I do think, though, in the Capital where we have members of the Confederacy who served as Speaker, their painting should come down. 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. It’s about what did they do about it. ”
She 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. 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 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.”
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