White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany questioned Monday why violent leftists across the country were tearing down statues of America’s founding fathers and even the spiritual leader Gandhi after the George Floyd protests.
PBS reporter Yamiche Alcindor questioned President Trump’s comments about American heritage at his last campaign rally, noting that it was “offensive” that America had statues “glorifying” leaders who owned slaves.
“What we’re seeing across the country is really quite confusing,” McEnany replied.
She noted from the podium that leftists were defacing statues of Ghandi, Union Gen. Ulysses S. Grant, and abolitionist Matthias Baldwin.
“At the same time we’re being told that George Washington’s statue needs to come down and Thomas Jefferson’s statue needs to come down,” she said. “Where do you draw the line?”
Violent rioters vandalized a statue of Ghandi in front of the Indian Embassy on June 2 in Washington, DC, leading the United States to officially apologize to India. In Great Britain, protesters defaced a statue of Gandhi on June 7.
McEnany cited a 2017 Marist poll showing that 62 percent of the American people agreed with the president’s opposition to taking down statues and monuments.
“I would point that out, and I would say that when people watch these statue defacements and the beheadings of some of these statues like Christopher Columbus, where do you draw the line?” she asked. “Because apparently the line goes back to Gandhi.”