The hosts of Fox and friends They waited until the last moments of their interview with Senator Tom Cotton (R-AR) to mention the comments he made about slavery and The New York Times” Project 1619 ‘during the weekend. Cotton took the opportunity to accuse them of spreading “false news.”
“Senator Tom Cotton, he’s in the eye of the storm, he likes to tackle hot topics, including ‘Project 1619,'” Brian Kilmeade said when the senator smiled awkwardly. He then quoted directly from Cotton’s interview with the Arkansas Democratic Gazette.
“We have to study the history of slavery and its role and impact on the development of our country because otherwise we cannot understand our country,” Cotton said in that interview. “As the Founding Fathers said, it was the necessary evil upon which the union was built, but the union was built in a way, as Lincoln said, to put slavery on the road to its final extinction.”
After reading that quote aloud, all Kilmeade had to say was, “Some say it was callous.”
“Well, that’s fake news, Brian,” Cotton replied, laughing awkwardly. “That is not what I said.”
“What I said is that many Founders believed that only with the Union and the Constitution could we put slavery on the path to its final extinction,” the senator continued. He did not clarify whether he believed that Fox or his local newspaper actually misquoted him at any point or if they were only cleaning up the comments after the fact.
“Of course, slavery is an evil institution,” added Cotton, “in all its forms, at all times, in the past of the United States or throughout the world today.”
Somehow, a “but” was coming.
“But the fundamental moral principle of the United States is there in the Declaration: ‘All men are created equal,'” he said. “And the history of the United States is the long and sometimes difficult fight to fulfill that principle.”
“That is a story we should be proud of, not the historical revisionism of ‘The 1619 Project,’ which wants to indoctrinate America’s children and teach them to hate America,” Cotton continued, looking at Steve Doocy. , co-host of Kilmeade, typing. on his phone “Believe that the United States was founded not on human freedom, but on racism. To think that slavery was not an aberration, but the true heart of the United States. “
In response to Cotton’s comments, Nikole Hannah-Jones of ‘Project 1619’ tweeted over the weekend, “Were the founders right or wrong, @TomCottonAR, when they called slavery a ‘necessary evil upon which it was built? the Union’? Because either you agree to their assessment of slavery as needed, or you admit that they were lying and that it was an evil and dishonorable choice. Which one?”
Cotton’s Fox interview did not answer his question.
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