Gingrich: We are in a battle for the soul of America
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich reacts to Joe Biden's official 2020 announcement on 'The Ingraham Angle.'
This is a rush transcript from "The Ingraham Angle," April 25, 2019. This copy may not be in its final form and may be updated.
RAYMOND ARROYO, HOST: Great show. I'm Raymond Arroyo, sitting in for Laura Ingraham and this is “The Ingraham Angle” from New York City. We'll have a complete wrap of the interview you just heard with President Trump as well as "Amtrak" Joe Biden's big announcement. Now Newt Gingrich is here in moments to break it all down.
Plus Ed Henry is digging into Biden's sketchy history when it comes to issues of race. He branded Trump a white nationalist during his campaign launch, but how qualified is Biden to the racial healer? We'll expose his record.
And patriotic senior Kate Smith is being stricken from sports venues over a 90 year old recording. The removal of her song and statue has opened cultural fissures across the country. A member of her family is here exclusively tonight with reaction.
But first Biden's race to race. Joe Biden after much hemming and hawing finally jumped into the race for the presidency today with a video announcement. Like Biden's presidential campaigns, the video was also a redo. His advisors rejected his initial attempt, leading one to wonder if this is the new and improved version, what did the first video look like.
He opened with racism and talk of Charlottesville.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOE BIDEN, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: It was there, in August of 2017, we saw Klansmen and white supremacists and neo-Nazis come out in the open. And that's when we heard the words of the President of the United States that stunned the world and shocked the conscience of this nation. He said there were, "Some very fine people on both sides"." Very fine people on both sides?"
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Now Biden can quibble about President Trump's verbal excesses. Though, given his linguistic snafus, it's probably best not to go there. But on this point, Biden is simply wrong.
The President was not referring to the white supremacists in Charlottesville as fine people. A point he made at the same press conference, where he first started the phrase.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
DONALD TRUMP, PRESIDENT: But you also had people that were very fine people - on both sides. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down of - to them a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name.
And I'm not talking about the neo-Nazis and the white nationalists, because they should be condemned totally. But you had many people in that group other than neo-Nazis and White Nationalists, OK.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: See what I mean? Facts aside, Biden has used that canard that President Trump gave aid and comfort the white supremacist as his rationale for his third White House run. Now this is the same Joe Biden who decades ago said this about segregation.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I think the concept of busing which implicit in that concept is the question you just asked, or the statement within the question you just asked, that we are going to integrate people so that they all have the same access and they learn to grow up with one another and all the rest, is a rejection of the whole movement of black pride.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Now later we'll explore Biden's long record on racial insensitivity with Ed Henry. But today, Biden said nothing of his record, experience or ability to reach across the aisle. Instead he's stuck to the Charlottesville narrative and described his crusade for President this way.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: I wrote at the time that we're in the battle for the soul of this nation. Well, that's even more true today. We are in the battle for the soul of this nation.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: A battle for the soul of the nation. There was no talk of how we would bring more jobs to Americans or expand the economy, because there's a little to argue there. Instead, Biden has taken a page from the Buchanan playbook. He's battling for the heart and soul of the nation.
Now this - is this casting may not work out so well. Biden is the man who supported the Obamacare mandate that required the Little Sisters of the Poor to provide contraceptives to their employees against their avowed religious beliefs. They're still fighting it in court.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: This is a big f****** deal.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: There were never truer words spoken. If battling for the soul of the nation includes protecting the most vulnerable, Joe Biden may have a problem. He defied his own bishops and supported a surcharge in the Obamacare plans that pay for elective abortions.
In the Senate, he voted against the abortion ban on military bases and even parental notification when minors are seeking an abortion. So what's wrong with America's soul again and how does Biden mean to fix it? He was short on details today, but he did evoke Jefferson's Declaration of Independence quoting the famous line that "All men are created equal".
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: We've heard it so often it's almost a cliche, but it's who we are. We haven't always lived up to these ideals. Jefferson himself didn't.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Now in recent years we've seen statues pulled down all over the country, because historical figures didn't measure up to today's standards. Some have targeted Jefferson statue at the University of Virginia. Others would prefer that all reminders of the slave-owning founding father be stricken from the public square, The Jefferson Memorial and Monticello included.
But what Biden did today is particularly dangerous. He sounded a dog whistle to forces that mean to purge America's history. By turning Jefferson's words on him, Biden intends to show how woke he is as a candidate.
But the problem with judging the past by the shifting mores of the present is that rational thought is lost, context is replaced with rancor, and even venerable public servants can be erased from the country's memory without appeal, even those still with us.
Now for some true context on Biden, his run, and much more we turn to historian and Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich. He's also a Fox News Contributor. Newt thank you for being here. He's also the host of the podcast "Newt's World".
Mr. Speaker your thoughts on Biden entering the Democratic field and what do you think qualifies him to battle for the soul of the nation?
NEWT GINGRICH, FORMER SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE: Well, Raymond, first of all I really liked what you just said. I thought it was very well done. I want to divide that into two parts, though. One part is what's going to happen to Biden. And later on I'm going to have the Kate Smith story on.
ARROYO: Yes.
GINGRICH: And if I were Biden and my newsletter tomorrow talks about this, I'd worry about the Kate Smith precedent.
BIDEN: Yes.
GINGRICH: She did 3,000 recordings in her career. Two of them in 1931 involve language that's racially offensive. Although at the time they were popular songs. And she's had her statue taken down. They no longer use her version of God Bless America--
ARROYO: God Bless America, yes.
GINGRICH: Even the song was written at her request. If I were Biden, I started to say "Gee, how many different things have I done in my career that are going to just rise up and bite me, because they're no longer make sense today". I think that's going to be a remarkable and I think it will frankly destroy his candidacy.
But I think he raised the right question, and I want to take it head-on. We are in a battle for the soul of America. On the one side, you have a party that believes babies can be killed after they're born. Well, that's a pretty definitional position. You have a party which believes you should have no right to buy personal insurance, that's a pretty definitional position.
You have a party who's frontrunner now says we ought to allow terrorists, the Boston bomber, rapists, murderers to vote while still in jail, that's a pretty clear position. You have a party which says we should have no border controls, no walls and open borders.
So I think this fight - I actually do believe 2020 is a fight over the soul of America, and which version of America we're going to go forward with.
ARROYO: Mr. Speaker I need to ask you about a huge missing endorsement for Jill Biden. Watch this.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE: If you are the best choice for the Democrats in 2020, why didn't President Obama endorse you?
BIDEN: I asked President Obama not to endorse, and he doesn't want this - we should - whoever wins this nomination should win it on their own merits.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Is that really what happened do you think Mr. Speaker or is he trying to save face?
GINGRICH: Well, I don't think we have any idea at this point. First of all, I don't think that President Obama endorsing Joe Biden would carry a dramatic amount of weight, because after all he was the Vice President for eight years. I mean, what be terrible would be if President Obama endorsed anybody else. So I think in that sense it's kind of - it's kind of awash.
Look, the challenge that Joe Biden has is that there's no positive, visionary, moral reason for this guy to come out of retirement and offer himself to the country. And part of what he's done discover, and I think this is actually a great irony.
Biden since our career is trying to be sort of a middle-of-the-road, bipartisan, good-old-boy, representing blue-collar workers et cetera. He's now in a party which despises every single thing I just described.
And I think he's not - he's in for a huge shock when he runs into the Left wing the Democratic Party. Because they don't want to argue with him, they just want to wipe him out. They have no interest in a dialogue with him. They just want to get rid of him.
ARROYO: Mr. Speaker I want to run something by you. Chris Christie said today that, the last election was basically determined in a handful of Rust Belt states and 80,000 votes made all the difference. He sees Joe Biden as a real competitor to the President, do you?
GINGRICH: No, I don't.
ARROYO: No, why not?
GINGRICH: if the economy - well, first of all, if the economy continues and it probably will, this President is going to go into the general election next year with the lowest black unemployment in history, the lowest Latino unemployment in history, the lowest female unemployment in history. With an economy which has improved dramatically, the pensions and the retirement and the wealth of virtually every American.
And he's going to be able to offer a very simple choice, would you like to continue to have America once again move towards greatness or do you really want to hang out with a bunch of Left-wing nutcase, who - Biden's not going to get the nomination unless he's willing to try to be the grandfather of the Left wing nutcases.
I mean, he's not going to win some fight for the control the Democratic Party. He doesn't have the base for it. He doesn't have the muscle for it, frankly he doesn't have the skill for it. And I think the Left wing of their party verges on insanity.
So you're going to have a choice next year, almost like 1972 or 1984, of an incumbent who has a good economy, who makes sense, who's doing things that are practical. And a Democratic opponent so trapped into Left-wing ideas that for the average American, they're just not going to be an acceptable choice.
ARROYO: Moments ago told Sean Hannity this when he reacted to Biden jumping into the race. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
TRUMP: You look at Joe, I've known Joe over the years. He's not the brightest light bulb in the group, I don't think. But he has a name that they know. He's coming on with some little cute statements about me that, he talked about the way the world is today.
When Biden makes the statement talking about the soul, I mean the soul, take a look at the Obama - you know, I heard somebody say before that there was such dissension and division. People forget there was tremendous division during the Obama administration--
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Your reaction Newt.
GINGRICH: Well, look, I think that's a very good thing to fight over. I mean, the truth is under Obama's leadership for eight years the Democratic Party collapsed nationally. They lost 4,000 seats in state legislatures, they lost governorships, they lost the Senate, they lost the House.
Underneath the pleasantness of the Obama personality, you had a country repudiating them and virtually every election. And I think the problem Biden's got is, first of all. He doesn't stand for any vision of the future.
Second, he's not going to be able to defend Obama against the Left. Remember the Left regards both Obama and the Clintons as sellouts. So the Left is over here now. I just was looking - I don't you've seen this yet, but the Amherst College book of definitions, which is hysterical, has the - captures in one short set of definitions how weird the Left is becoming.
And I think that Biden and his team have almost no idea what's going to come at him from the Left, because the Left is going to say to him, first of all he's old, he's white, he's male.
ARROYO: Well we're going to get into all that white in a moment. Mr. Speaker, I thank you so much for being here - I'm sorry we're out of time. I've got to get to this panel.
GINGRICH: Thank you.
ARROYO: And the big question you raised surrounding Joe Biden's candidacy, does the new radical Left trust him enough? In today's note from a progressive group Justice Democrats, if this is any indication, the answer is clearly no.
They wrote in part, "While we're going to support the Democratic nominee, we can't let a so-called centrist like Joe Biden divide the Democratic Party and turn it into a party of "No, we can't".
Here now Former Clinton Pollster, Mark Penn; and John Opdycke is a Democratic activist and President of Open Primaries. Mark, what did the Biden announcement today tell you? Did it seem rather desperate that he was overcompensating, particularly on the racial issue?
MARK PENN, FORMER CLINTON POLLSTER: No. Look, I thought it was a good announcement. I'm detecting a lot of fear of Biden here tonight. I think that he - he's eight points ahead of Trump in the polls. He's at 37 percent or so in the polls in the Democratic primary. He's waited. I think until there are 19 other candidates in, which I think was good, but there are probably 19 candidates out to go after him.
Look, I think, he showed he's going to be a values oriented, centrist, center-Left candidate and the Democratic Party needed that choice. There were too many choices over on the extreme Left, let the voters decide what the Democratic Party stands for. Let's not anyone prejudge that.
ARROYO: Now John, you are - you really are representing where the energy of this party is right now. When you look at Joe Biden, can you support Joe Biden, would you support him and what did Hillary Clinton's campaign teach you that we should - what lessons should we observe--
JOHN OPDYCKE, PRESIDENT OPEN PRIMARIES USA: Well, first of all, I'm an independent.
ARROYO: OK.
OPDYCKE: Not a Democrat.
ARROYO: OK.
OPDYCKE: I'm an independent activist. I voted for Democrats, I voted for Republicans, voted for their party candidates. I think that what Biden is going to have to face is a Left wing of the party that has wind in its sails.
They're saying, why should we go with another centrist, moderate Democrat? Look what happened to Hillary Clinton in 2016. She snatched defeat from the mouth of victory and lost to Donald Trump. They're going to say we need a true believer. And I think that Joe Biden is going to have to face some tough questions from progressive activists.
ARROYO: I want you both to react to the way Joy Behar - this is how she reacted to the Biden announcement today. This is kind of the middle American Democratic reaction, watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
JOY BEHAR, HOST, ABC NEWS: I have to say I'm so touched by, moved by that video that he did.
I mean our uncle's were in Normandy, our fathers were on the beach, we were the good guys in this country and now we're not. People look at this country in horror and say what happened to America. That it's not just about policy right now. He'll get to that. But America, look at this and say do we want this America back or don't we?
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Do you want this America back? Now, Mark, Biden is leading in the polls. He's beating the President by eight points in some polls today. Does it matter at this point? And as Donny Deutsch said today, does the country need a hug and will Biden give it to them?
PENN: Well, no, look there are a lot of voters who are very concerned about the President's style, particularly suburban voters, who defected. Biden is very reassuring to those voters. So the reason I think there's a lot of fear of Biden, is that, A, he can reassure suburban voters. He was a Vice President for eight years. He was a good leader during that period, and he could reach out to working-class voters.
And I think he represents a very, very strong candidate, probably the strongest candidate in the field today, would be my guess. But he's going to have to stand up to the primary. Can he defeat Bernie Sanders? That remains to be seen.
ARROYO: John do you agree with Mark's analysis, and does he have a woman's problem, given the fact that Anita Hill has rejected his apology. And of course there's grope and sniff gate.
OPDYCKE: I think that - I think Mark's on to something. I think there probably will be a strong strain of can we get back to four years ago, eight years ago, stop the chaos of the current administration. But Biden runs a real risk in doing that.
Because if you look at the electorate, the electorate is not - they're not risk-averse. They're furious with the political establishment.
ARROYO: And know, but get back to what, economic malice, wages sliding, uncertainty in the world. I mean, at least Trump has moved the ball on those issues. Doesn't that make it a much steeper climb than had Biden run last time?
OPDYCKE: They're furious that our government is incompetent and incapable of addressing the real issues that people are faced with. They look at both political parties and they say, we're tired of them blaming each other. This whole thing is a problem.
And if Biden simply says, hey let's turn back the clock. If he doesn't have a vision to go forward, and address those things, he's not going to gain traction.
ARROYO: OK. We will leave it there. Panel, thank you so much. We'll see what happens. Moments away Ed Henry breaks down what some are calling Biden's racial insensitivity, don't miss that.
And later, four days after the Sri Lanka Massacre, some of the newest Democratic stars are reacting, but others haven't said a word, you will not believe this. Stay right there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
ARROYO: Welcome back to the “The Ingraham Angle.” With nearly five decades of public service, Joe Biden is kicking off his campaign, touting himself as a racial healer. With his long record, there are bound to be some skeletons, and with Biden his racial pronouncements could be the most troubling of them all.
For more, let's bring in Fox News's Chief National Correspondent, Ed Henry is with me in New York. Ed?
ED HENRY, CHIEF NATIONAL CORRESPONDENT: Raymond, great to see you. Breaking tonight a fresh example of Joe Biden struggles to please the Left on issues of race. With word leaking he recently tried and failed to patch things up with Anita Hill. Biden had 28 years to try and fix this. He served as Chair of the Senate Judiciary Panel in '91.
Hill felt that the all-white male panel did not treat her as an African- American woman fairly, when she lodged those sexual harassment allegations against then Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas.
Yet, it was only this month Biden finally called to express regret. Hill told The New York Times it fell short of an actual apology and she cannot support him. A Biden spokesperson telling us tonight "They had a private discussion where he shared with her directly his regret for what she endured and his admiration for everything she has done to change the culture around sexual harassment in this country".
Now this is part of a series of incidents that have unsettled the Left. In 1975, Biden said schools should stay segregated. Recently his spokesman explained that Biden felt that forced busing would not achieve equal opportunity and he stands behind that.
In '94 President Bill Clinton signed into law an anti-crime bill authored by Biden. At the time, Biden said it was needed because of "Predators are on our streets". African-American leaders have condemned that. Biden's current team says the context is violent crime rates were super-high, but this comes after a whole bunch of race related gaffes. Watch.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
BIDEN: In Delaware the largest growth in population is Indian-Americans, moving from India. You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or Dunkin' Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent to put - I'm not joking.
I mean, you got the first sort of mainstream African-American who is articulate and bright and clean and a nice looking guy. That's a story book.
They're going to put y'all back in chains.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
HENRY: Well former Hillary Clinton spokeswoman Jen Palmieri told MSNBC today. "There's a lot of nostalgia for Obama in the Biden candidacy". But she added Democratic primary voters typically reject the anointed one. We saw that with Clinton, remember.
Hard to square, how the Biden candidacy represents a nostalgia for Obama, when Obama himself is on the sidelines, as many former Presidents tried to do. In the case of Clinton, of course, she won the nomination lost the general. Raymond?
ARROYO: Ed, thanks so much. Come over here and join me on the panel.
HENRY: All right.
ARROYO: We want to bring in Larry Elder, who's the Nationally Syndicated talk show host, and Shane Harris who's former National Action Network Executive. Shane I want to start with you.
It's not like Biden made one gaffe. He's arguably the most racially insensitive Democrat since LBJ, if not Robert Byrd. How will this impact his reception in the black community?
SHANE HARRIS, FORMER NATIONAL ACTION NETWORK EXECUTIVE: Well you know it's good to be on with you.
ARROYO: Thank you.
HARRIS: And you know I have gone on to start my own national civil rights group called the People's Alliance for Justice. I am a proud former staff member of the National Action Network.
But I think one of the things that is important to address about Joe Biden's connection with the African-American community and sort of his history, his record is that, many of the candidates have challenging records when it comes to racial justice and issues regarding racial reconciliation in this country.
And so I think that, while we do see Biden's history around the Crime Bill and some of the other issues that I think are very critical - we're all very critical of. We also are - have this sort of forgiveness - I'm a reverend, I believe in Jesus. We have a reconciliation process and we want to give people the chance to correct those mistakes.
And I think that he is on to - at the start of this campaign to addressing through even some of his recent hires like Symone Sanders, how he will deal with racial justice and how he will rewrite those wrongs historically.
ARROYO: I'm glad you brought up Symone Sanders. Biden just hired her. Now she was working for Bernie Sanders. She's a Former CNN Contributor. She was Sanders spokesperson back in 2016.
Here's what she said after that election about who should not be leading the Democratic Party listen. Larry, I want your response.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SYMONE SANDERS, SENIOR ADVISER TO FORMER VICE PRESIDENT JOE BIDEN'S 2020 PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGN: We don't need white people leading the Democratic Party right now. The Democratic Party is diverse and it should be reflected as so.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: So Larry, if she didn't think the DNC should be run by someone who's white, why should she think the country should be?
LARRY ELDER, HOST, NATIONALLY SYNDICATED RADIO: whatever happened to MLK's desire for a colorblind society where we'd evaluate people based upon the content of their character, rather than the color of their skin.
If Biden's rivals are trying to portray him as somehow as a racist or racially insensitive, that's a tough putt. The comments that he made about busing in 1975 were comments that were made by a lot of people. There was white flight, there was a black flight.
Fast forward, busing is very unpopular. And in 1979, here in California, they passed an initiative to get rid of mandatory busing. And in the early 70s, there was a Gallup poll showing that the majority - almost half of blacks opposed busing, 72 percent of whites opposed busing.
Regarding the Crime Bill, the majority of the members of the Congressional Black Caucus supported the Crime Bill before they turned against it. So - and also Joe Biden served for eight years as VP to the first black President. So to argue that Joe Biden is bigoted or racist or racially insensitive, to me is a real heavy lift.
ARROYO: Ed, you remember early on he floated that overture to Stacey Abrams to be his running mate or at least members of the Biden team did. What was that designed to do and did you hear echoes of that in this speech today in this announcement?
HENRY: Well, clearly, going right to Charlottesville in the opening announcement, it might be an appeal to African-American voters, in particular. But I think it's a broader message where Joe Biden is trying to prosecute a case against President Trump directly in the primaries instead of going after Bernie Sanders per se on Medicare-for-all or someone else on the Green New Deal. That may backfire, because he's got to win the nomination first.
On Larry's point, there were explanations for what Joe Biden did and I'll try to give you both sides on that in the 70s, in the 80s, in the 90s. But the question I think is going to be, is he going to stand behind some of that and be strong, and say, "Look, here's the context" or is he going to go on an apology tour.
Because a few weeks back, before he officially announced, he was already apologizing for some of these.
ARROYO: Yes, it looks like the apology tour has already begun.
HARRIS: But hold on. But hold on there. We also have to observe the reality that many on both sides of the platform, when you talk about Republicans and Democrats, have a bad history when it comes to African- Americans. This country does not have a good history when it comes to African-Americans.
And I think that Joe Biden is starting off not just with Charlottesville, addressing the African-American community, but he's actually, because it was Heather Heyer, a white woman, who was killed in that racial battle that took place down there is Charlottesville. And the conversation around it was bigger than just blacks. It was about the division in this country.
And I think that Joe Biden addresses the division in this country that really needs to be addressed, because the president clearly is not about bringing people together, clearly not about bringing racial justice. Clearly about dividing us.
ARROYO: Shane, I think a lot of people would disagree with you given his record on criminal justice reform, the wages going up the black community, the homes owned in the black community. But Shane, Shane, wait a minute.
HARRIS: I was at the White House. I was at the White House with Van Jones for criminal justice reform.
ARROYO: So that was a good thing, right?
HARRIS: Yes, that was a good thing. But we've also got to acknowledge the reality of how this administration has dealt with the racial biases in some of the real race riots that have happened in this country and the rise hate crimes.
ARROYO: Why would he labor against his own party if there was some sort of bias toward the black community. Criminal justice reform was not something popular in Republican circles.
Very quickly, Larry, I want to play this for you. There is a familiar refrain among some of the Democratic frontrunners. Bernie Sanders had this to say at the National Action Network meeting. Listen.
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
SEN. BERNIE SANDERS, I-VT, D-PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE: We have a president today who is a racist, who is a sexist, who is a homophobe, who is a xenophobe, and who is a religious bigot.
(APPLAUSE)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: Larry, your reaction to that very quickly, 10 seconds.
LARRY ELDER, NATIONAL SYNDICATED RADIO HOST: I think it's pretty rich for this to be said at the National Action Network, which is held by Al Sharpton, who was involved in the Crown Heights riots, who referred to the black mayor of New York as an n-word, (EXPLETIVE), who had all sorts of horrible things to say about homosexuals, who referred to Jews as diamond merchants, whites as interlopers. And for Sanders to denounce racism from there is pretty rich.
ARROYO: Gentlemen, I'm up against a hard break. Thank you, all.
HARRIS: I think, I think --
ARROYO: Her rendition of "God Bless America" is a classic, but now the late singer Kate Smith's song and statue have been banned from sports arena over what critics call racist songs from the 1930s. A member of her family is outraged. He is here exclusively to respond. Stay there.
(COMMERCIAL BREAK)
(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)
(SINGING)
(END VIDEO CLIP)
ARROYO: That was the legendary singer Kate Smith and the song she made famous, "God Bless America." But tonight she is in a the headlines for another reason. Her song and statue booted from venues that host the New York Yankees and the Philadelphia Flyers. The controversy, an anonymous fan contacted the sports franchises claiming that a song Smith recorded some nine decades ago is racist. Not only was "God Bless America" written for her by Irving Berlin, her performances of the song help sell over $1 billion in war bonds.
That's not all. Royalties from the hit went on to benefit Boys and Girl Scout programs across the country in impoverished areas. Kate Smith's family is outraged tonight, and one of those members, Bob Andron joins me now. Bob, you were married to Kate Smith's niece. What did you and your wife think when you saw that statue erected to salute your aunt in 1987? It was taken down in the dead of night.
BOB ANDRON, NEPHEW OF SINGER KATE SMITH: We were shocked. We didn't expect, never heard anything about it coming up. We had not heard about the Yankees, because that happened just before that. When we heard it, my wife's reaction was just heartbroken. She was so close to her aunt all of her life. And we called her Aunt Kathryn. She came to live with us in the last few years of her life after she had become extremely ill down in Raleigh, North Carolina, where I live in where I am right now.
ARROYO: I have to -- the song in question that they're talking about was a song from something called the George White Scandals. This was a Broadway hit in the '30s. And what people are not reporting, Kate Smith recorded this when she was in her 20s, no doubt at the behest of her recording company, Columbia. Bing Crosby recorded this song. Paul Robeson recorded this song. Should we not listen to any of their tunes anymore? Is "White Christmas" foreboded, or should it be?
ANDRON: If you take "White Christmas," you shouldn't even listen to "White Christmas" anymore because in the movie "Holiday Inn" Bing Crosby was in the middle of a minstrel show. So where do you draw the line is the real question. And when do you use your own native intelligence to realize that we're all Americans, and we happen to have different ideas of some things.
ARROYO: I have a real problem about this latter-day revisionism where they go back and condemn someone for one thing they did. Judy Garland was in blackface, Crosby was in blackface. You've got a governor in Virginia, he's in blackface. Nobody cares. He is still in office.
This is something your aunt said in 1945. She said, "Racial hatred, social prejudices, religious bigotry, they are the diseases that eat away at the fibers of peace. One thing the peoples of the world have got to learn if we are ever to have a lasting peace is tolerance." Those don't seem the words of a racist to me. Your reaction?
ANDRON: They are not. She never was a racist. The idea that she is racist only came because she sang a song, not wrote the song, she sang a song, and the verses in there don't even say or indicate that she was any kind of racist. The verses talk about how the black folks taught the white folks how to sing. And the real truth of her life is that I knew for many, many years, is that she thought that God gave her, bestowed on her the gift of a great voice. And because she always saw that as a gift, she thought it was her job to give that gift away. And she gave it to America. And that is the nature of this incredible woman. It's one thing --
ARROYO: It aches me because without Kate Smith there would've been no "God Bless America." Berlin wrote the song for her, at her behest. She even had the rights to it for a while and then ended up giving them away.
ANDRON: That's correct.
ARROYO: I want you to react to what the Flyers said. They put up on Twitter. They said, "We cannot stand idle while material from another era gets in the way of who we are today." You are a lifelong Democrat, Bob. Are you stunned by what you are seeing and from people across the political divide on this?
ANDRON: I am. I'm amazed by it, and that's why I'm on this show tonight. I have a lot of good friends, I'm in business, I'm an architect. One of my former clients is one of the largest the contributors to the Republican Party in North Carolina. He sent me several articles today about this thing.
ARROYO: Thank you, Bob. Bob, I'm so sorry, I'm out of time.
ANDRON: I understand.
ARROYO: But our thoughts are with you with the rest of the Smith family.
Four days out from the Easter massacre in Sri Lanka, and one Muslim reformist worries that a new holy war is in the offing. She is here next to explain, and she's got a message for some freshman Democrats over their responses. You do not want to miss this.
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ARROYO: There seems to be a vastly different reaction to these religiously motivated attacks, like the one in Sri Lanka on Easter Sunday. Take Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, no stranger to sounding off on Twitter over pretty much anything. She sent 14 tweets out about the New Zealand mosque shooting. But regarding the tragedy in Sri Lanka, not a single tweet or public comment. Her comrade Ilhan Omar wrote this. "As countless people attend Easter service today, our prayers are with the people of Sri Lanka who lost loved ones in this horrible attack. No person of any faith should be fearful in the house of worship."
To react is Qanta Ahmed. She's a Muslim reformer and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. What is wrong with Omar's tweet? She doesn't talk about the victims or the perpetrators?
DR. QANTA AHMED, MUSLIM SCHOLAR: Exactly, in both cases not mentioning that it was specifically persecution of Christians, and it was perpetrated by radical Islamists, or Islamists masquerading as Muslims. And as she is one of only two Muslim congresspeople in the United States, that is a great oversight, and it is a disservice.
ARROYO: Cardinal Robert Sarah, who is an African Vatican cardinal, he tweeted this out. He said "the followers of Christ are all over the world victims of wild and foolish deeds. I condemn this barbaric Islamist violence." What's right there, and why are we seeing these attacks spread all over the world?
AHMED: So those are courageous sentiment that he said. It is exactly Islamist, the political totalitarian imposter of Islam that is perpetrating these acts, though everyone that did those acts in Sri Lanka is an Islamist, and that is very important, that distinguishes it from innocent Muslims who themselves are also victims. But it's admitting that Christians are subject to persecution, particularly in Asia, one in three Christians. The number one persecutor of Christians, North Korea. Number two, fast rising, China.
ARROYO: China. It's unbelievable. And then we see in Africa and other places, it's this pattern of Christian attacks, they're becoming routine. In Africa, I'm just going to run through this, and we have some video. In Nigeria in 2012, 41 people killed in a car bomb attack near a church. In 2017 in Egypt, two churches were bombed on Palm Sunday, killing 45. I could go on and on, the bus attack on the way to the Egyptian monastery where ISIS gunned down 29 people including children. Here's the big question, Qanta. How do you stop this? Christians can't do anything about it. We Catholics can't do anything here. What is the answer?
AHMED: I think the answer is that people of faith and decent people around the world can do things in all of our capacities. You are bringing light to this to your audience. I write about these ideas. We stand as Catholic and Muslim together repudiating this extremism, but also teaching our governments not to fear naming the ideology and the followers of those ideologies. Those attacks you mentioned. I was in Egypt days after the Coptic churches were attacked, and Muslim soldiers gave their lives trying to stop suicide bombers from coming in. I was in Iraq after ISIS. Muslims are rebuilding the churches ISIS destroyed. And I've just been in Rwanda where Muslims and Christians joined forces to shelter individuals from genocide.
So there is much that ordinary people can do, but politicians not wanting to name it because they are afraid of political correctness or this fictional Islamophobia is a nonsense empowering only the radicals, empowering only Islamists.
ARROYO: Now, the attacks are increasing. They are widening according to Open Doors USA. Violent attacks on Christians have doubled from 2017 to 2018. Eleven Christians die for their faith each day. Let's talk about who is perpetuating these atrocities. In Sri Lanka, the attackers were educated in the west, in the U.K. and Australia. What does this tell us, very quickly?
AHMED: Not only educated but wealthy as well. One of them, the scion of one of the wealthiest spice traders in Sri Lanka, so very troubling. Islamism attracts all comers. I've met child soldiers that were indoctrinated into the Taliban in Pakistan that were extremely impoverished. We know bin Laden in New York in this country was from one of the wealthiest Saudi families. There are many routes into this radicalization.
And also, there were women that perpetrated some of the suicide bombings in Sri Lanka, but women are well known by Israeli scholars to be the smarter bomber. You cannot underestimate. This is an ideology that welcomes all newcomers, so we must become more learned about it. And Muslims particularly have a role to distinguish real Islam from its imposter.
ARROYO: Thank you so much for being here, Qanta. We will continue following this.
Two judges, two very different judges. One judge rips prosecutor Kim Foxx for letting Jussie Smollett off the hook. Another is charged with sneaking an illegal out of her courtroom to avoid ICE agents. Trace Gallagher brings us the wild tales. Here come the judges, next.
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ARROYO: Two judges, two very different realities. One an update to a story that we covered when a first broke. A Boston-area judge charged with helping an undocumented immigrant escape a courthouse to elude immigration officers. Another, a judge rightfully rips into the prosecutor who let Jussie Smollett off of the hook. For details on both, we go to Trace Gallagher in our West Coast Newsroom. Trace?
TRACE GALLAGHER, CORRESPONDENT: Raymond, good evening. Jose Medina-Perez is an illegal immigrant who has been deported twice. He is wanted on a drunk driving warrant, and was appearing in a Massachusetts courtroom before a Judge Shelley Richmond Joseph on drug charges. If Medina-Perez made bail, there was an ICE agent in the courthouse hallway waiting to re-arrest him.
Here is the conversation picked up on courtroom audio between Judge Joseph and the defense attorney for Medina-Perez. They speak softly so listen close.
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DAVID JELLINEK, DEFENSE ATTORNEY: ICE will pick him up if he walks out the front door.
JUDGE SHELLEY JOSEPH: ICE is going to get him. What is we continue --
JELLINEK: Are we filming?
JOSEPH: Larry, can we go off the record for a moment.
(END VIDEO CLIP)
GALLAGHER: It's unclear what they said when they turned off the audio recorder, but the defense lawyer later told the judge Medina-Perez needed to get his property downstairs, which the judge allowed. That's when prosecutors say the court officer, Wesley MacGregor, who is also charged, used his access card to slip Medina-Perez out the back door.
The lead federal investigator said, quote, "The people of this country deserve nothing less than to know that their appointed and elected representatives are working on their behalf while adhering to and enforcing the rule of law, not a personal agenda." Today after being indicted, Judge Joseph pled not guilty and then cried leaving the courthouse. Her attorney says this case is purely political.
And speaking of questionable legal moves, a Chicago judge has castigated Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx for a double standard. It turns out after dropping charges against Jussie Smollett for allegedly staging a hate crime hoax and filing a phony police report, Kim Foxx prosecuted Candace Clark for filing a false police report. Judge Mark Martin said, quote, "Ms. Clark is not a movie star. She doesn't have a high-priced lawyer, and this smells big time. I didn't create this mess. Your office created this mess."
The judge ended by asking why Ms. Clark is being treated differently than Jussie Smollett. Raymond?
ARROYO: Trace, and the "Empire" crew still wants Smollett back on the show, unbelievable. An important announcement next, stay right there.
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ARROYO: Before we go, I will be sitting in for Laura Ingraham again tomorrow night. We'll even bring you Friday Follies. And I'm signing copies of my "Will Wilder" book series on May 4th in Fairfax, Virginia, and May 11th in New Orleans. All the details are on my Web site, RaymondArroyo.com. I will see you there.
I'm Raymond Arroyo from New York. My pal, Shannon Bream, and the "Fox News @ Night" team take it from here.
Shannon, I'm finishing up finding the bright side. I'm going to be reading that as you start.
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