Fox News host Greta Van Susteren on Sunday said that Republican members of Congress should have put more pressure on House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) to step down following reports that he spoke at an event for a white nationalist group in 2002.
“If the Republican Party want to send a message out there, and I don’t know whether it’s fair to Congressman Scalise or not fair to him, whatever, but associating with David Duke is grossly unwise,” she said during a roundtable discussion on ABC’s “This Week.”
“If you want to send a messages to the American people, Republicans and Democrats, this would have been the opportunity to say he should step aside, whether it’s fair or not, and send a message that we’re not going to have this distraction,” Van Susteren continued.
Scalise apologized for the speech and called it a “mistake I regret,” but he has not announced plans to resign from Congress or step down from his leadership position.
“The moral courage would be to step down because it sends a very bad message to the American people,” Van Susteren said on Sunday.
Just imagine if it was a black Democrat in the whip position and it turned out that he had spoken to a gathering of the Black Panthers?
Greta Van Susteren is showing some moral courage (She made this comment on ABC but not on Faux.), but Scalise stepping down is a no-brainer. The reason he is not stepping down is because HE and the GOTP are no-brainers.
Why must she put out this false equivalency statement? It is not Democrats who fear their party or any of their member of Congress is in bed with David Duke or other hatemongers. Pols in LA have been in bed with Duke for at least 20 years, but very subtly and removed from the source of the hatred. So far it works for them.
I rarely agree with Greta. Just to manage the cosmetics, whether you believe it of not, it seems wise for Scalise to disappear. Will the democrats give this opportunity the exposure it needs & deserves? Probably not.
It looks like the next two years are going to be very entertaining as the GOP starts to rattle itself apart like a dryer with a bowling ball inside.
Scalise should step down why? He perfectly represents the Southern Republicans. That’s why he was chosen. It’s time for Republicans to embrace David Duke and all he stands for. They have been doing that (and pretending otherwise) since Nixon invented the “Southern Strategy,” which allowed the Republicans to capture the South. Keeping Scalise in the leadership is an act of political honesty. Racists need representation, too!