Fox's Newt Gingrich melts down over NY Times Magazine's 1619 Project about impact of slavery: “The whole project is a lie”
Gingrich: The New York Times' 1619 project showcasing the role of slavery in America's founding shows “a tragic decline of The New York Times into a propaganda paper worthy of Pravda or Izvestia in the Soviet Union”
Published
Citation From the August 19 edition of Fox News' Fox & Friends
GRIFF JENKINS (FOX NEWS CORRESPONDENT): Newt, I want to ask you about The New York Times Magazine, I know you read it as much as you can, launching a new crusade to reframe America as defined by slavery and racism. Here's the headline, I want to show it to you. The 1619 Project, and the quote inside says, "It aims to reframe the country's history, understanding 1619 as our true founding and placing the consequences of slavery and the contributions of Black Americans at the very center of the story tell we tell ourselves about who we are." You are a historian. Your reaction?
NEWT GINGRICH (FOX NEWS CONTRIBUTOR): Yeah, the whole project is a lie. Look, I think slavery is a terrible thing. I think putting slavery in context is important. We still have slavery in places around the world today, so we recognize this is an ongoing story. I think certainly if you are an African American, slavery is at the center of what you see as the American experience. But, for most Americans, most of the time, there were a lot of other things going on. There were several hundred thousand white Americans who died in the Civil War in order to free the slaves. The fact is that I saw one reference that The New York Times claims that the American Revolution was caused in part to defend slavery. That is such historically factually false nonsense that it's embarrassing that The New York Times is doing this. But, if you saw the recent leaked interview, town hall meeting with The New York Times' editor, he basically said, look, we blew it on Russian collusion, didn't work. Now we're going to go to racism, that's our new model. The next two years will be Trump and racism. This is a tragic decline of The New York Times into a propaganda paper worthy of Pravda or Izvestia in the Soviet Union.
STEVE DOOCY (FOX & FRIENDS CO-HOST): Read all about it in the New York Times Magazine. Alright, Newt, thank you very much for joining us.