Ex-Trump spokeswoman on slavery: ‘Bad history is still good history’

A former spokeswoman for President Trump’s presidential campaign got into a heated debate Monday with a fellow Fox News guest while discussing the removal of Confederate statues from the Capitol.

Katrina Pierson, who now works for the nonprofit America First Policies, was asked by “Fox and Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt if House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) should join Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) in calling for the removal of the statues from the halls of Congress.

“Absolutely not,”  Pierson said. “How long has Nancy Pelosi been in Washington, D.C.? Those monuments have been there for a very long time, and suddenly, Nancy Pelosi wants to help these anarchists and these violent protestors tear down pieces of America, American culture and American history.”

{mosads}“The only place that that’s being done right now is by ISIS, and I really don’t think that you should have leaders actually encouraging people to do these types of things, because Americans actually love their history, their culture, good and bad, because it helps them learn and it helps keep people educated about why America is so great to begin with.”

Fellow guest Wendy Osefo, a Johns Hopkins University professor and Fox News commentator, pushed back on Pierson, saying the monuments aren’t “a symbol of patriotism” but instead “of hatred and division.”

“While it is a piece of American history, it’s not necessarily the good part of American history,” Osefo said. “It’s actually nefarious. So it doesn’t deserve a place on state grounds, it deserves a place in museums, and that’s where they need to be.”

“It absolutely deserves a place, because bad history is still good history for this country,” Pierson replied.

Osefo interjected, “slavery is good history?”

“Considering where we are today — absolutely,” Pierson said. “Think about this for a second — where would we be without the Civil War?”

Pierson and Osefo then launched into a tense exchange that Earhardt struggled to contain.

In a statement last week, Pelosi joined a host of other Democrats calling for the removal of the statues from the Capitol.

“There is no room for celebrating the violent bigotry of the men of the Confederacy in the hallowed halls of the United States Capitol or in places of honor across the country,” Pelosi said in a statement.

The debate around moving Confederate statues ramped up in the days following violence at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville, Va. Several universities and cities have taken down their statues, and protesters in Durham, N.C., toppled a Confederate monument last week.