Katrina Pierson was only trying to help President Donald Trump. That’s why she said slavery was “good” on Fox & Friends this morning.
It all started with a debate over House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s push to remove Confederate monuments from the U.S. Capitol in the aftermath of the Charlottesville white-supremacist rally that turned deadly.
On one side was Pierson, a former spokesperson for the Trump campaign, who accused the Democratic leader of trying to “actually help these anarchists and these violent protesters tear down pieces of America, American culture, and American history.”
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“The only place that that's being done right now is by ISIS and I really don't think that you should have leaders actually encouraging people to do these types of things,” she continued, “because Americans actually love their history, their culture, good and bad, because it helps them learn and it helps keep people educated about why America is so great to begin with.”
On the other side was Wendy Osefo, the left-leaning half of Fox & Friends’ most devastating segment the week before, who pushed back fairly gently against Pierson, saying the statues belonged in museums, not on state grounds.
But it was this comment from Pierson that caught Osefo’s attention: “It absolutely deserves a place, because bad history is still good history for this country.”
“Slavery is good history?” Osefo asked in disbelief.
Now, while most reasonable person would respond with an emphatic, “of course not,” Pierson went a different direction.
“Considering where we are today! Where we are today! Absolutely!” she said.
“Slavery is good history? Absolutely? Oh, wow,” Osefo shot back.
When Pierson argued that American children wouldn’t know “how special and how wonderful” this country is without the Civil War, Osefo asked, “How special slavery is? You know how many people died?”
All host Ainsley Earhardt could do is try to get between them with general platitudes like “it’s clearly a heated topic” and “no one is racist, no one believes in racism or bigotry” that don’t seem quite as universal as they used to.
Pierson, who became known for viral moments like this one during the 2016 campaign, turned down a role with the Trump administration, as Sean Spicer told The Daily Beast back in March, possibly in the deputy press secretary role that went instead to Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
One can only imagine what the White House press briefings would be like with Pierson behind the podium.
