The White House condemned Greg Gutfeld for his ‘dangerous and gross lies’ after he claimed some Jewish people survived Nazi camps by being ‘useful’.
The Fox News host’s provocative comments came during a panel discussion in defense of the controversial new Florida slavery curriculum – also sparking a rebuke from the Auschwitz museum and a tirade online as he was branded a ‘scumbag’.
Middle school students in Florida will be taught that slavery gave black people ‘skills’ that could be ‘used to their personal advantage’, under new curriculum approved by the state Board of Education.
A 216-page document from the board includes new instructions for secondary school teachers, including how to teach students ‘how slaves develop skills, which in some cases can be applied to their personal advantage’.
Speaking about the new curriculum during Monday’s edition of Fox News Channel’s The Five, hosts including Jesse Waters, 45, and Gutfeld, 58, engaged in a stunning exchange captured in clips that have gone viral.
The White House slammed Fox News host Greg Gutfeld for his ‘dangerous and gross Holocaust lies’ after he claimed some Jewish people survived Nazi camps by being ‘useful’.
It began with Waters’ defense of the curriculum, which has been imposed by the administration of Florida governor and White House hopeful Ron DeSantis.
“It’s a historical fact that slaves developed skills while enslaved and then used those skills as blacksmiths, in agriculture, tailoring, shipping businesses, then used them to benefit themselves and their families after they were freed,” Waters said.
‘It is not controversial. It actually speaks to the resilience and resourcefulness of enslaved African Americans who were able to better themselves and improve their circumstances at the time.
‘Despite the atrocious, atrocious conditions, horrible and hideous circumstances.’
At this point, liberal Fox News co-host Jessica Tarlov, 39, noted that she is Jewish, and posed the hypothetical question: ‘For example, would anyone say about the Holocaust that there were benefits for Jews?
‘Just when they were hanging out in the concentration camp – ‘You learned a strong work ethic, didn’t you? Maybe you learned a new skill.’
Gutfeld essentially answered yes with his answer.
‘Have you ever read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’?’ he asked.
‘Viktor Frankl talked about how he had to survive a concentration camp by having skills. You have to be useful – utility – utility keeps you alive,’ declared Gutfeld.
Jesse Waters, 45, made a similar comparison about black Americans who were victims of slavery
This comes after Jesse Waters saw primetime figures drop by 800,000 after he was replaced by Tucker Carlson. The show aired for the first time on July 17 with Waters, drawing 2.4 million viewers compared to Carlson’s usual 3.2 million.
The White House weighed in the next day, condemning the right-wing channel for its silence on the controversial comments.
White House Deputy Press Secretary Andrew Bates said in a statement to CNN, ‘What Fox News allowed their campaign to say yesterday – and has so far failed to condemn – is obscenity.’
‘To defend a horrible, dangerous, gross lie that insults the memory of millions of Americans who suffered from the evils of slavery, a Fox News host told another horrible, dangerous, gross lie that insults the memory of millions of people who suffered from the evils of the Holocaust.
‘Let’s get to something that the American people understand perfectly well and it’s not complicated: There was nothing good about slavery; There was nothing good about the Holocaust. Beard.
‘Americans deserve to be united, not torn apart by poison. And they deserve truth and freedom to learn, not banned books and lies.’
Officials at Poland’s Auschwitz-Birkenau Memorial and Museum also drew criticism for their comments in a six-paragraph Twitter post.
‘While it is true that some Jews may have used their skills or usefulness during the Holocaust to increase their chances of survival, this statement must be properly contextualized and understood as not representing the complex history of genocide perpetrated by Nazi Germany,’ they said.
Gutfeld’s inflammatory comments came during a panel discussion in defense of the controversial new Florida slavery curriculum — also sparking a rebuke from the Auschwitz museum.
‘While it is correct to acknowledge that some Jews may have survived temporarily due to their perceived usefulness, it is important to remember that the Holocaust was a systematic genocide with the ultimate goal of exterminating the entire Jewish population.
‘It would be more appropriate to say that some Jews survived the Holocaust because they were considered temporarily useful, and the circumstances of the fall of the Nazi regime prevented their killing.’
‘We should avoid such oversimplifications in talking about this complex tragic story,’ they concluded.
The museum also addressed Gutfeld’s 1946 autobiography of Austrian psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl, which describes his experiences and how they shaped his view of the world.
‘Viktor Frankl’s observations of the specific circumstances of Auschwitz, which at one point became a camp that combined the functions of a concentration camp and extermination center and where deported Jews went through a selection process, highlight how some Jews became registered prisoners and could use their skills to gain advantage or prolong their lives in that particular environment,’ they said.
‘However, this did not give them full protection.’
Known for his provocative rhetoric, Gutfeld, who has been a fixture of the Fox News lineup for more than 15 years since joining in 2007, has received much more blunt criticism from viewers online.
Jewish academic Shael Ben-Ephraim, who describes himself as a Zionist, asked Gutfeld if he considered his family members who died in the Holocaust to be ‘not worth living’.
‘In an attempt to explain how slavery benefited African Americans, Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld explains that Jews who were effective survived the Holocaust,’ said Ben-Ephraim.
‘My family members who did not survive Auschwitz were not fit enough to survive. Right, Greg?’
Gutfeld’s Holocaust comment sparked outrage among the Jewish community and horrified viewers on Twitter
A woman named Marlene Robertson also called Gutfeld a ‘scumbag’ on Twitter.
‘Scumbag Greg Gutfeld says the Holocaust wasn’t so bad because some Jews survived competently,’ said Robertson.
He did not mention what happened to the six million Jews who had no skills.
‘How do the advertisers, who keep Fox afloat, sleep at night?’
This comes after Jesse Waters saw primetime figures drop by 800,000 after he was replaced by Tucker Carlson.
The show aired for the first time on July 17 with Waters, drawing 2.4 million viewers compared to Carlson’s usual 3.2 million.
It was Waters’ first 8pm show since Carlson, 54, was fired by the network in April, days after Fox settled a legal battle with Dominion Voting Systems for $787.5 million over defamation claims related to the 2020 presidential election.
Despite Carlson loyalists not all tuning in to Waters’ show, his numbers easily bested his rivals at CNN and MSNBC, according to ratings data compiled by Nielsen.
MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes had 1.222 million viewers the same night and CNN’s Anderson Cooper 360 had 668,222 viewers.
Read Full News Here