On Newsmax, Rick Santorum claims Barack Obama “reinstilled racism in this country by his behavior”
Published
Citation From the August 20, 2024, edition of Newsmax's coverage of the Democratic National Convention
MERCEDES SCHLAPP (CO-HOST): Rick, I want to ask you because I think there was something very strange tonight. Kamala Harris was counterprogramming, doing her own rally with Tim Walz in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, not there to listen to President Obama, Michelle Obama. What does that tell you?
RICH SANTORUM (GUEST): Well, that they desperately needed Wisconsin and that no one's really watching the Democratic National Convention. That — I think that's really what it tells you, that these conventions don't mean as much as they used to. This was a convention that is going to have, I think, probably very low viewership and is really stimulating very little interest. There's nothing happening at this convention. I mean, this is Barack Obama giving a speech that he could have given, you know, in 2008 or 2012. In fact, he did give variations of this speech both those times. When I ran against him in 2012, this is what he sounded like - that he was the great uniter, that he was someone who was, you know, cared about not white — red America and blue America. But, you know, all this was just crazy. I mean, this — but the thing that hit me the most, I can usually tell how effective Obama is by how high my blood pressure is by the end of the speech because he just simply sits there and just and says — everything he says is simply false. It's just makes your blood boil.
No one, as Matt said, divided this country more than Barack Obama in his time. He created — or I shouldn't say created, but reinstilled racism in this country by his behavior. He introduced socialism into the vein and — you know, deep vein of the of the Democratic Party. And then decided to run a race in 2012, which I was trying to run against him, to balkanize this country, to run hard to the left, to run because he thought demographics was destiny — that was the word back then — that all these folks were, you know, Hispanics and Blacks and all these were going to — the demographics were going to change, and they could run hard left and they could run, you know, Black versus white, and they could win. Well, that hasn't really turned out to be the case. But the bottom line is he's the same candidate. And I — frankly, I think he swung and missed tonight. I was somewhat — my blood pressure wasn't that bad. I thought it was pretty thin gruel.