The Race Factor and Katrina

This is a partial transcript from "The O'Reilly Factor," September 7, 2005, that has been edited for clarity.

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BILL O'REILLY, HOST: In the "Personal Story" segment tonight, race and Hurricane Katrina. So far rapper Kanye West (search), we had heard him say that authorities had been ordered to shoot blacks and President Bush doesn't care about African- Americans.

And we have the Reverend Al Sharpton saying NBC was wrong in censoring Mr. West.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

REV. AL SHARPTON, NATIONAL ACTON NETWORK: Why would you censor Kanye West? If he got on there calling women names they wouldn't have censored him. If he got on there saying something derogatory they wouldn't have censored him. For him to stand up for his own people they censor? I think they should let Kanye West say what needs to be said and let the president defend it if he wants to.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

Also supporting West, Diddy — no more "P" — and Jay-Z.

So you've got to wonder what the heck's going on here? With us now in the studio, Elinor Tatum, publisher of The Amsterdam News (search) here in New York City, and syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock.

You know, I don't care that West said that President Bush doesn't care about black people. I mean, so what? He says that — Bush gets hit all the time with that stuff.

But I did care that he said authorities were ordered to shoot black people. That was grossly irresponsible to say.

And we're going to have Sharpton here tomorrow. He's going to be on “The Factor” tomorrow and we're going to ask him about that.

And that is why I think NBC did the right thing here.

DEROY MURDOCK, COLUMNIST: Remember, this was a fund-raising program. This was entertainment and fund-raising, and this introduced a level of politics and commentary into it. I'm not sure that's exactly the right place to have had that discussion. He could have said that somewhere else.

O'REILLY: It might have been an inappropriate venue, but there is freedom of speech. And you know, again, if you want to make a political statement you've got to take what comes.

But there's a lot of people putting their lives on the line here to save these people, of all colors.

MURDOCK: Yes.

O'REILLY: And to go on national TV and to talk to an uninformed — some uninformed people and say there orders are to kill black people, that's beyond the pale.

MURDOCK: Yes, I think it was. I think that was a completely inappropriate thing to say.

And the idea that President Bush doesn't care about black people and therefore he, I guess, called FEMA and said, "OK, take your time rescuing these people" is a really bizarre idea.

This suggests that he thinks that getting his entire program through -- Social Security reform, Iraq policy and so on — that he would boost his popularity and find applause in the country and around the world by hurting black people. I can't imagine he thinks that.

O'REILLY: No politician — no politician would ever say, "Yes, let the black people die." I mean, that's death for the politician.

How do you see it, Ms. Tatum?

ELINOR TATUM, PUBLISHER, THE AMSTERDAM NEWS: Of course they'd never say it, but it doesn't mean they're not thinking that the black population is not worth as much.

O'REILLY: Can you read minds, though?

TATUM: I cannot read minds, but at the same time, from what we've seen in policies throughout the Bush administration it is evident that he does not care as much about some people as he cares about others.

O'REILLY: Can you give me one example to illustrate that?

TATUM: Well, the hurricane in particular. Right there. You've got policies that — well, we can't actually say they're policies. But we have evidence that people were not taken care of the way they should have.

O'REILLY: Yes, but give me an example of color-based policy in Katrina.

See, I don't know — you've got the mayor of the city is black. The police chief is black. OK, now, they didn't force, even though there was mandatory evacuations issued, black people to leave. They didn't. All right. They didn't provide buses to get them out of town.

TATUM: Except — but now, is that the role of the city?

O'REILLY: Yes, it is.

TATUM: State? Or federal government?

O'REILLY: No federal has no jurisdiction in getting people out of an evacuation zone.

TATUM: If there is going to be an event such as...

O'REILLY: They knew, but the state has total authority in evacuation. Total authority.

TATUM: Right, but they can ask for help.

O'REILLY: And they didn't.

TATUM: That's...

O'REILLY: The governor of the state didn't ask for help.

MURDOCK: It was not until Thursday that Governor Blanco (search) asked for 40,000 National Guard...

O'REILLY: Wednesday.

MURDOCK: Wednesday.

O'REILLY: Wednesday.

MURDOCK: OK, so again, she could have done that Sunday. She could have done it Monday. Didn't happen until Wednesday.

O'REILLY: Well, we knew Blanco — we know Blanco blew it. But see, look, Ms. Tatum, with all due respect, your newspaper, I think, is honest. And you provide a service for the African-American community throughout the country.

If you're going to say that Bush is irresponsible toward blacks or weighted against blacks, you've got to have a solid reason to point to, and I haven't heard it from you.

TATUM: Well, let's look at policies like No Child Left Behind (search), something that is supposed to help children of color, poor children. But yet it was underfunded. So that...

O'REILLY: It's record funding, though.

MURDOCK: Huge funding.

TATUM: It's record funding, but it's still not enough to do what it's supposed to be doing.

O'REILLY: In your opinion, it's not enough.

TATUM: That's what all the studies have said.

MURDOCK: I think there's a huge difference between saying, "Look, maybe the president is not giving enough money to education, even though the education budget has gone up by about 50 percent under this president," saying that on the one side, and saying on the other he doesn't care about blacks and therefore he's willing to let them sit out in the sun and dehydrate.

I was very frustrated, wondering why they couldn't manage at least to get water to these people until Friday. They should have air dropped water in.

But the president ordered — pushed on Governor Blanco to have a mandatory evacuation. That was on Sunday. I think on Saturday declared a state of emergency, came back from his vacation — probably a day or two later than he should have, but did come back, asked Congress to come in. They approved $10.5 billion, which he signed.

So if he really didn't care about black people, I don't think you would have seen — you wouldn't have seen him pushing for this evacuation.

TATUM: He cared...

O'REILLY: Go ahead.

TATUM: He cared about the publicity he was getting!

O'REILLY: How do you know that, though? See, you're assigning him malevolent...

TATUM: How do you know that's not the case?

O'REILLY: But you can't condemn someone in this country — you are innocent until proven guilty. You can't assume the worst of someone without evidence.

TATUM: Well, I would love to have seen the best from him. I would have loved to have seen people evacuated earlier.

O'REILLY: So would I. I think all of us would have loved to have seen that.

MURDOCK: He called for an evacuation. Governor Blanco did not want to do an evacuation. He pushed for that early.

O'REILLY: To be fair...

MURDOCK: And by the way, one of the things...

O'REILLY: ... the president should have been more proactive in this, but I don't think he — but I don't think that color had anything to do with it at all.

(CROSSTALK)

TATUM: I think that...

O'REILLY: I think that they just weren't pro-active enough.

MURDOCK: And there are a lot of balls dropped. You can take a...

TATUM: But that has to do with the fact that this is a population that is mostly black and poor.

O'REILLY: But this is fascinating. So you think that Bush in Crawford, Texas sat back and said, "Sixty-eight percent black [population] in New Orleans. I don't really care what happens." You really believe that?

TATUM: What I believe is that, if these people had not been black and poor, things would have moved much more quickly. And it was not until the deluge of media attention about how deplorable these conditions were that the president moved.

MURDOCK: Well before — well before...

O'REILLY: I'll give you the last word, Mr. Murdock.

MURDOCK: Well before that happened, President Bush declared a state of emergency, called on Blanco to do a mandatory evacuation. She apparently was resistant, he pushed on that.

O'REILLY: She's still resisting.

MURDOCK: The other thing I'd point out is that there were about 150 school buses in the city of New Orleans that could have been used to get people out. They're now still sitting in a parking lot, all wet. And there was no way to get them out of there.

O'REILLY: All right.

MURDOCK: And that would have helped people get out of there much more quickly, or right after the hurricane passed, at least get out of town.

O'REILLY: One more quick one. You don't think people were ordered to shoot black people, do you?

TATUM: I believe that people were ordered to shoot to kill.

O'REILLY: Well, looters, that's what happens.

MURDOCK: And people were shooting at rescuers in boats and helicopters.

O'REILLY: Well, they — anybody — anyway — all right, thank you. Thank you.

MURDOCK: Both...

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