MARTHA MACCALLUM (HOST): Here now, Brit Hume, Fox News senior political analyst, Brit good evening to you, what did you think first of all of his speech and his statement on the floor and his assertion that he was taken out of context, misquoted?
BRIT HUME: I can kind of see his point, but I am sorry, the juxtaposition of what is wrong with those terms and the phrase white supremacist is just too close for comfort. And I think that he was on the right track when he went along with the resolution today to condemn that. This whole episode, Martha, is testament to something that I think is very important to understand. Which is, the great achievement of the civil rights movement was not necessarily the passing of the laws, important as they were, the civil rights laws, it was also the great national, overwhelming national consensus against racism. If you are touched with that label, racist, you are in severe trouble. What has happened to Steve King is proof of that.
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But we need to be careful flinging this term around, because what has happened to this, tragically, is that this great triumph of the civil rights movement making racism indefensible and intolerable has been weaponized. The term now, the adjective racist is hurled around with abandon. It is the kind of thing that we in the news media need to stay out of. We shouldn't be getting involved in this. We should not be throwing the word racist around with abandon. We should be very careful with how we use it. What NBC said to do the first place which was to leave it to others to characterize it as racist was the right call, the second call in my opinion was the wrong call. And that The New York Times piece was completely bogus. I mean, those comments, look I don't agree with them and I'm no fan of Steve King. But, I am sorry, they did not amount to racism.
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I think, you know, I think he certainly had a tough day today, Steve King. And I think you know he is trying to crawl back in the good graces. But, remember, he has been stripped of all his committee assignments. Congress committee is congress at work. If you're not on any committees, there's not a lot you can do except vote on the floor and that's not much.
