Far-right cable channel Newsmax marked the federal holiday that commemorates the national emancipation of enslaved African Americans by railing against Juneteenth as nothing more than an excuse to take a day off so intoxicated city residents can get violent.
In a series of primetime segments on Monday night, several white conservative male hosts took a break from fearmongering about drag queens “grooming” children in order to dog-whistle about the outbursts of violence over the weekend in order to paint Juneteenth with a broad brush. For instance, one host insisted the nation should expect Juneteenth to “usher in crime and violence into America’s inner cities” going forward.
Leading off his program Rob Schmitt Tonight, anchor Rob Schmitt wondered aloud if Juneteenth is “going to be an annual day of violence” while new Newsmax host Greta Van Susteren handed off her show to him.
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“Juneteenth is now a federal holiday, thanks to Joe Biden, of course, and a lot of pandering,” Schmitt sarcastically noted before claiming that the day “erupted into chaos” in large cities across the country.
Highlighting fatal shootings that occurred around several Juneteenth celebrations, the Newsmax star also aired a clip of “hooligans” surrounding the car of an older white man while implying that the driver barely escaped death.
“This is what Juneteenth looked like in cities across the country,” the former Fox News anchor declared. “This is now the second year that Juneteenth has been federally recognized. And it seems that it’s become an annual reminder of the chaos that we saw in the summer of 2020.”
Schmitt added: “So every year, in mid-June, you can expect a federal holiday now to usher in crime and violence into America’s inner cities. Much like ‘defund the police,’ liberal virtue-signaling making inner cities more violent and less safe.”
The following hour, another ex-Fox News star read from the same playbook, including comparing Juneteenth celebrations to the fiery racial justice protests that sprung up in the aftermath of George Floyd’s 2020 murder.
Also pointing to the deadly Washington, D.C., shooting that occurred at a free concert celebrating the holiday, host Eric Bolling not only decried the violence but also took issue with other scenes from the neighborhood celebration.
“And look at this, a young woman stopped traffic, jumped on cars, and began twerking,” a horrified Bolling, who once wondered if Kamala Harris’ blackness is “sexy or not,” exclaimed.
The disgraced former Fox News host went on to mock the concert’s promotional poster for advertising a “peaceful demonstration,” gleefully comparing it to the notorious scene of MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi reporting from a George Floyd protest while a fire raged in the background.
Interestingly, neither Bolling nor Schmitt brought up the high number of shootings that have taken place over the past two Independence Day weekends. According to the Gun Violence Archive, hundreds of people were killed in shootings during the Fourth of July holidays in 2020 and 2021.
These Monday night segments, however, paled in comparison to the lengthy show-opening monologue that host Greg Kelly devoted to raging about Juneteenth.
Yet another one-time Fox News host turned Newsmax star, Kelly has become infamous for his thinly veiled racist tirades. He sparked outrage over a series of now-deleted tweets last year in which he said he appreciated having a “white” secretary of defense when he served in the military. (Newsmax claimed his posts were an attempt at sarcasm while promising to review the matter.) Kelly also recently labeled white conservative pundit Ben Shapiro “one of the heroes” of the Black conservative movement.
Kelly, meanwhile, kicked off his Monday night show by saying it was “totally unnecessary” to make Juneteenth a holiday because “it’s too obscure” and “vague.” From there, the cartoonishly MAGA host insisted that the holiday was just a “stunt” to undermine former President Donald Trump over a Tulsa rally he scheduled in June 2020.“But Trump was right when he said this, I made Juneteenth very famous,” he blustered. “There would be no holiday had it not been for the effort to undermine trump about when he had a rally scheduled.”
Claiming that President’s Day already celebrates the emancipation of enslaved people because it commemorates Abraham Lincoln, Kelly asserted that Black political leaders in the past were uninterested in making Juneteenth a holiday.
“Martin Luther King, for all of his contributions, a federal holiday for Juneteenth was not on his list. The same goes for the late great, they tell me, Congressman John Lewis. This was not a priority of his either,” Kelly stated, adding: “Barack and Michelle Obama, now they were eight years, right? Why didn’t they come up with it? Why didn’t they push it? In fact, given the opportunity, they blew it off—like so many other things they thought, ‘Hey, just by being here we’ve done so much for civil rights.’”
The Newsmax host then said that the holiday was “counterproductive” and was “actually hurting people” before griping that this was just another opportunity for people “to drink or get high.” At one point, the show aired graphics that read: “ALCOHOL+GUNS+TIME+WEED+HEAT.”
Furthermore, like Bolling and Schmitt, he focused on instances of violence during the weekend, warning that this will be a “long, hot summer” caused by “racial strife.” He also blasted Fox News for even acknowledging the holiday at all, whining that they devoted a segment to a Black musician and claiming his former network was “virtue-signaling like never before.”
Finally, as he’s done before, Kelly fumed about “Black supremacy” becoming a “real thing” while saying white supremacy is “totally overblown,” pointing to the decision by media outlets to capitalize the B while referencing Black Americans.
“And I find it kinda weird that the W in ‘white’ isn't capitalized,” he exclaimed. “I mean, are they saying that one race is better than another?!”
