"There’s a racial component": Newsmax host complains impeachment is racist against “white folk"

“It’s clear to me there’s a racial component,” said Newsmax host Greg Kelly

By Jon Skolnik

Staff Writer

Published February 12, 2021 12:46PM (EST)

From the February 11, 2021, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports (Newsmax)
From the February 11, 2021, edition of Newsmax's Greg Kelly Reports (Newsmax)

Newsmax host Greg Kelly claimed on Thursday that the push to convict Trump has a "racial component" and is ultimately fueled by anti-white sentiment. 

"Right now in America, who doesn't have much status?" Kelly asked. "White folk. Especially poor, white folk. Especially poor, white people who stormed the Capitol," the top-rated cable news host asserted, ignoring data that shows most people arrested for storming the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6 are professionals like business owners and police officers.  

"They should not have done it and I think the rioters should be prosecuted," the host added, before qualifying that not all rioters should be held equally responsible. "Some of them were led inside…some of them just happened to be there," explained Kelly, in a strange attempt to remove the rioters of their own agency. 

"Did you see the video outside of Nancy Pelosi's office?" Kelly continued, "This is evidence and it should be looked into and –– and those responsible should be punished. But why so selective? Why is this like 9/11?"

Security camera footage presented by impeachment trial managers on the second day of trial showed members of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's, D-NY, staff running into an office that they barricaded as the riot was underway. Rioters managed to breach the outer office door but did not succeed in getting past the inner one. 

The Newsmax host then contrasted the media's coverage of insurrection to what he thought was the deferential treatment of the Minneapolis racial. "What about when they took over that police precinct in Minneapolis?" he asked. 

"I mean, they took over a police precinct. Guess what?" he continued. "They went inside. They trashed the place. The cops had to evacuate. The cops actually had to evacuate. And this was considered a beautiful thing somehow.

"Now why is that? What's the difference?" he asked, one difference, of course, being that, while one group of demonstrators was protesting against the racism in law enforcement –– a phenomenon widely documented throughout U.S. history –– another other was raging against a non-existent case of election fraud. 


By Jon Skolnik

Jon Skolnik was a former staff writer at Salon.

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Greg Kelly Impeachment Newsmax Racist White Folk