business
mr david happen here later today we'll talk to you bill share
and kristen salters will do our election predictions lewis i know you have years
ready to go
and i have to admit and
very curious as to what lewis's guests will be i'm hoping his guess isn't so
absurd
that it will that will be silly
but he claims to have done his research
i think it's it's a
this outrageous okay
and then a little bit later we'll talk to wayne vasan from truth wins out dot
or it's a lot going on i want to get right into one williams
juan williams was fired
from n_p_r_
as you may have heard
he is a long time foxnews contributor he was fired for
a comment he made about muslims he said
all play it for you this is the conversation now the comment
the specific comment that he was fired for was about
newt gingrich interest muslims making their best
when they're in muslim garb
on the same planet m is that right let's let's take a listen to it
and uh... then we can decide whether this qso there's a lot to talk about
here
juan williams of wine
i gotta tell a everybody i don't know if it is that uh...
that's all he was memo really written down call yeah
uh... myself so we relied on ron that one
well i think i i i hate the straight-a student and wanted the jury level but i
think you're right i think with political correctness
can lead to some kind of paralysis where you don't address reality i mean look
though i'm not a big if you are the kind of books i've written about the civil
rights movement in this country
but when i get on a plane identifies the people who are in muslim guard
and i think you know they're identifying themselves first and foremost as muslims
i get worried i get nervous
that's so
he did this is a common use firefox and i'm going to be very up front with you
hear louis i think n_p_r_ made a huge mistake
by firing him on this
for a number of different reasons
what's the what's the biggest reason
well here's the thing and he she should and could have been fired by npr long
ago for playing a fake liberal on fox news right i mean it's bad
the npr has a long history of not wanting their people there reporters to
be giving their opinion
on other media outlets
tell me can't do that long ago
tell to say you don't want their people doing
opinion journalism but to fire him for this is not good for it for a number of
visit different reasons number one
you know that i'm the first to call people racist right and i look on people
races it's almost every week on the show yeah
rarely does context change
what somebody said
but really the context here i think was important in the sense that the entire
discussion was about how we should not be discriminating against muslims
and and this really was i hate to say it because it's so cliche but it was taken
out of context now i want to be very clear i'm no fan of juan williams
i have never liked them on fox news i thought he was put up their purpose is
to be kind of the week liberal who half the time agreed with the conservative
viewpoint anyway
i am not a fan of williams at all
but i'd believe that this was a mistake to fire and now the other thing is that
he makes one good point
which is we can't even have a discussion about a lot of these things because
immediately
there are accusations of racism
now funny many gets fired for it
your your half and substantially half of your family is muslim way i mean your
mom's side is jewish your dad's side is muslim your dad specifically doesn't
consider and isn't a practicing muslim right
now what what's your reaction when you hear something like this
i agree with you but
you know i think it's in the back of a lot of people's minds and he just said
what was on a lot of people's minds i mean i don't think it was
it was racist i don't think he was being a big hit
i think what he said is true i started getting emails from people so what's
true that that's how he feels that he asked are you getting emails from evil
saying if he said when he sees black people on an airplane he gets nervous
and that would be clearly racist nobody would be arguing with that what what
about that
i'm just fine devil's advocate is my position on this isn't you know it would
be great to have an adult conversation
about the fact that
you
we know we don't have to go to the extremes to discuss this and my sense is
this
if i i don't last four flights i was on
on at least one of them there was somebody in what williams is describing
as muslim guard
because of the media environment that we live in and and what we've been exposed
to on radio and television and movie since nine eleven
let's be honest when you see somebody dressed that way which by the way they
may not even be muslim we might be talking about seeks right who wear
turbans and had nothing to do with the muslim religion when we see that we are
conditioned in a certain way for better or for worse but it's the reality to
make a certain connection in our minds
now that doesn't mean we can't be adults and say hold on a second
my mind went to a certain place because of when exposed to constantly on radio
and t_v_
the reality is when i think about this rationally
that there's no reason to be nervous
and i'm not nervous and you know if you asked me what which one of those last
four flights were the word was this group of people in so-called muslim
garbo who may not even have been muslims
i couldn't tell you
i would assume it was in on the fight to argentina because they'd it just
wouldn't make sense it is probably going to d_c_ urge cargo right why can't we
have that discussion without it devolving into he is a so-called big it
which we saw with rick sanchez and by the way i believe is true in that case
them
why can't we do that we just can't it's one of two extremes either you are
making anti muslim racism claims
or you are saying people are being unrealistic in denying muslim
involvement in terrorism those are the two extremes that we get
why can't we have the reasonable discussion
political correctness
so you agree with with williams here
of course is absolutely right do you think you'll get fired
there i think are fired up
fitted the here's here's the reality
that aside
here's what it was a mistake for npr
one was the last time that npr made national headlines
for anything interesting happening on the air
that you can remember lewis
when they fired one williams before that
the applecare amanda right and the npr is
is struggling in some senses in terms of fundraising in a number of different
ways as is p_b_s_ in that could be due to do it to the economy maybe i don't
know
npr goes out and they fire williams
what is this too
this gives foxnews an incredible amount of fodder
and now they can say that hey listen why wire whitlock
why are we saying that that that n_p_r_'s boston debate and discussion
disguised as this one common it's taken out of context and they fire her
and not only that n_p_r_ c_e_o_ vivian schiller makes it even worse
by talking about william psychiatrist
they could not have handled the situation worse and let me play this
video for you here and end and i'd just don't understand what on earth is it
that they're doing what are they trying to achieve with this type of commentary
one feels
the way he feels that is not
for me to jack to pass judgment on that is really his feelings that he expressed
on fox news a really between him and his
psychiatrists are established sister particular sab
but there is not compatible with a new sale soviet vivian schiller npr
president and c_e_o_ says that
big mistake again a big mistake
she just looks
like she's taking a swipe at him that's the type of thing he should discuss with
the psychiatrist
she apologized for it n_p_r_ doesn't look good
i think i don't know you know the reality is my sense and it was clear
that npr has been upset about
williams appearing on fox news regularly for a while
right you can just discredited excuse to get rid of him
and in a sense vivian schiller did say that saying this is not the first time
they've had this type of issue but the anti npr stuff is now happening i hate
to be honest because i i i i don't want to see this happen but npr will suffer
as a result of this
what we can be sure of is that fox won't fire him for the day they have a
disciplined and they're not going to fire him
i mean you can even joke about that killing the president
on fox news
and you don't get fired now actually have have an example of that this is liz
trotter
who did some kind of commentary
on our on fox news and she jokingly said that about present
on disaster right wing conspiracy blamed
eye's been undermined by her datians abadi her allright lines if i may say by
her pandering by her race-baiting and now we have what but the summer reading
as suggested that somebody knock off us poem asana untill donot
balance of concurred ok so you can joke around it's very clear you can joke
around on fox news about killing the president and you're not going to get
fired so williams is safe now with a three-year two million dollar contract
n_p_r_ comes out the loser in this and tell me where i'm wrong
now i guess you're right me i don't think they're losing a great deal
by firing him
but just from a api our standpoint i guess it's just opening up the door to a
lot of criticism and the all open it up to our to our audience should williams
had been fired you can log on to mid-week politics dot com attorney paul
you tell me wide believe that he should not have been fired for others to be
true different reasons disrupt the standpoint of what is npr need to do
to not
having even worse perception
nationally and it was not this
believe me it was not this
i really i the first to want to say that people are racist
if you really listen to the context williams's is not that liberal
and he's not that compelling on fox news but idon't believe that that he is a
racist i hate it it just it's not its edges don't believe he is
right here i think ur
there it's interesting was deserved this
i don't think so
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