It seems RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was not prepared to separate the GOP from presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's prior statements where he said that poor kids have no work ethics and called child labor laws stupid, when asked about them by
December 4, 2011

It seems RNC Chairman Reince Priebus was not prepared to separate the GOP from presidential candidate Newt Gingrich's prior statements where he said that poor kids have no work ethics and called child labor laws stupid, when asked about them by David Gregory on this Sunday's Meet the Press.

Priebus, who came armed with the identical set of talking points he reeled off during his other Sunday show appearance on CBS's Face the Nation, only took a slight pause from trashing President Obama to say that he wasn't "going to dissect... hundreds of hours of footage of every one of these candidates and everything that they say" before going right back on the attack and blaming the president for the number of people in poverty in the United States.

MR. GREGORY: Newt Gingrich, who is now a front-runner, along with Mitt Romney, has said on this program that, in the past, discipline has been a problem for him, in his personal life and in his public life. To that point, a lot of critics are looking at his comments this week and saying, "Are we seeing the return of that Newt Gingrich?" This is what he said about children.

(Videotape, Thursday)

FMR. REP. GINGRICH: Really poor children in really poor neighborhoods have no habits of working and have nobody around them who works. So they literally have--they have no habit of showing up on Monday. They have no habit of staying all day. They have no habit of, "I do this and you give me cash."

(End videotape)

MR. GREGORY: Is that the view of the Republican Party? He also called child labor laws "truly stupid."

MR. PRIEBUS: Well, you know, I'm going to let--you know, I can't be the referee of all, you know, 21 candidates in the Republican field. I mean, the reality is that these candidates have to speak for themselves. But that's another...

MR. GREGORY: But you're out there raising money, you're--you are the top party official. The, the rank and file are going to turn to you and let their voices be heard. Do you think that's the Republican Party putting its best foot forward to challenge President Obama?

MR. PRIEBUS: Well, I'm not going to dissect, you know, hundreds of hours of footage of every one of these candidates and everything that they say, but what I can tell you is that what Newt Gingrich was referring to in that--in some of those remarks was the fact that, under this president we have more poor people in this country, we have more people on food stamps than ever before. I mean, for a president that portrays himself as being the guy that's going to look out for all economic sectors in this country, including those that are less fortunate, he's provided this country, under his policies, some numbers that are pretty staggering regarding to how many more people that are poor and how many more people are on food stamps. He's failed them, too.

That's pretty rich coming from a member of the party in America that's hated every one of our social safety nets and has been trying to destroy them from the day they were enacted. Just recently one of their other candidates, Michele Bachmann was saying the United States should be more like China and end the Great Society programs. Gregory didn't do any follow up to ask him about that.

Can you help us out?

For nearly 20 years we have been exposing Washington lies and untangling media deceit, but now Facebook is drowning us in an ocean of right wing lies. Please give a one-time or recurring donation, or buy a year's subscription for an ad-free experience. Thank you.

Discussion

We welcome relevant, respectful comments. Any comments that are sexist or in any other way deemed hateful by our staff will be deleted and constitute grounds for a ban from posting on the site. Please refer to our Terms of Service for information on our posting policy.
Mastodon