It made me think as someone obviously I'm not black, but I'm Jewish,
would someone say about the Holocaust, for
instance, that there were some benefits for Jews, right?
While they were hanging out in concentration camps you learned a strong
work ethic, right?
Maybe you learned a new skill.
>> Speaker 2: Did you ever read man's search for meaning?
Vic Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having
skills.
You had to be useful.
Utility.
Utility kept you alive.
>> Speaker 3: That state statement from Greg Gutfeld has led to both
the White House and the Auschwitz Memorial criticizing Fox News and
condemning his statements.
Now let's back up a little bit and give you some context into what they
were discussing and what Greg Gutfeld was saying there.
Now, the comments made by primetime host Greg Gutfeld came during a discussion
Monday on the Five about Florida's new black history standards that require
instruction for students to include, quote, how slaves develop skills,
which in some instances could be applied for their personal benefit.
That wording, by the way,
is not a paraphrase of what the new curriculum standards indicate.
That is verbatim what the new curriculum standards say.
And, of course, that has led to a lot of backlash, a lot of controversy.
And in the context of this discussion on the Five, Jessica Tarlov,
who is a liberal-leaning host on the show,
was trying to push back against what Florida is doing here.
And so she provides an analogy, an example, as someone who is Jewish.
And so I want you to watch the video one more time, and then, Cenk,
I want you to share your thoughts.
>> Speaker 1: It made me think as someone obviously I'm not black, but I'm Jewish,
would someone say about the Holocaust, for instance,
that there were some benefits for Jews, right?
While they were hanging out in concentration camps you learned a strong
work ethic, right?
Maybe you learned a new skill.
>> Speaker 2: Did you ever read man's search for meaning?
Vic Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having
skills.
You had to be useful.
Utility.
Utility kept you alive.
>> Speaker 3: So that appears to be a bit of a perversion of
what the book actually said.
So, Cenk, you've read the book.
Tell us your thoughts.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, so, boy, did he leave out an important part.
So I did read that book, and in a lot of ways, it's the most hopeful and
the most heartbreaking book you've ever read.
And the fact that he was able to maintain his optimism throughout and
afterwards is what's stunning.
And that's why that book has gotten so much attention.
But what Viktor Frankl writes in the book is absolutely devastating.
When he said useful, it was useful to the Nazis, and
a lot of times it was in shepherding registering other Jews.
And when you read the stories of the folks who collaborated and
were useful to the Nazis, I cannot understand how Frankel kept his optimism.
And for a guy as optimistic as me and so when you find out what happened inside
those camps, it is worse than anything you could imagine.
And by the way, how about the 6 million Jews who died?
What use did they get out of the concentration camps the Nazis ran?
Guys, they've lost all bounds.
There's no morality left at all at Fox News to be able to say, like, well,
the Jews got some utility out of the Holocaust.
>> Speaker 3: No, it's insane.
>> Speaker 4: It's the most insane thing I've ever heard.
And to pervert what Viktor Frankl wrote into this monstrosity where
it makes it sound like they learned knitting and
afterwards they made a career in knitting or carpentry.
No, you know what they were doing?
They were doing stuff, and in best case scenario,
in Gutfeld's interpretation, was helping the war effort of the Nazis
because they were forced to as slaves before they were murdered.
Jesus Christ.
You're gonna try to paint that as a positive thing that the Nazis did for
the Jews?
No, there are no bounds left at Fox News.
>> Speaker 3: I mean, it's the same reason why the curriculum standards in Florida
are so controversial, right?
Because it attempts to paint a rosier picture of slavery
in America to find some non-existent silver lining in regard to slavery.
>> Speaker 4: Yeah, well, again, to that point, look, guys, these are so obvious,
but we have to make them,
because unfortunately, people just hear the one or two lines on Fox News,
they never hear the rest of the story, and they haven't studied history enough.
And now places like Florida are taking out the correct version of history and
putting this insane version of history.
So we have to clarify.
Millions of slaves never made it out of slavery.
So their useful skills that they learned were never used on their own behalf.
Their labor was stolen for their entire lives, and
they lived and died under that brutality of slavery.
But even for the ones, the few ones that made it out at the very,
very end, first of all, do you think that the slave
owners taught that stuff to them out of the goodness of their heart?
No, they taught them that so they could use them for free labor,
that you teach them carpentry.
So they do free carpentry for you because they're slaves.
They make it sound like the slave owners were benevolent.
I will teach.
>> Speaker 3: Yeah, like it was some sort of apprenticeship.
It's ridiculous.
>> Speaker 4: And after slavery, when they got out and they wanted to use
those crafts and they wanted to build a living, what happened in the south?
They robbed them of the land that they were supposed to have,
the property that they were supposed to have.
And if they ever made it through those skills, then they took all the money and
burned their houses down.
So what are we supposed to celebrate the slave owners?
What kind of disgusting?
It's not only disgusting version of history and disgusting racism,
anti-Semitism, etc that they're putting out there, but
this is political correctness in the worst imaginable way.
Instead of teaching factual history,
they're teaching a politicized version of history where the slave owners are not so
bad and they were helping the slaves beyond disgusting.
>> Speaker 3: So let's get to the reactions to Gutfeld,
starting with the Auschwitz Memorial.
So Greg Gutfeld's assertion immediately ignited criticism, including from
the Auschwitz Memorial, which said in a statement, quote, being skilled or
useful did not spare Jewish people from the horrors of the gas chambers.
And today the White House also weighed in on this,
blasting the right-wing channel Fox News.
Of course, what Fox News allowed to be said on their air yesterday and
has so far failed to condemn is an obscenity in defending a horrid,
dangerous, extreme lie that insults the memory of
millions of Americans who suffered from the evils of enslavement.
A Fox News host told another horrid, dangerous, and extreme lie that insults
the memory of the millions of people who suffered from the evils of the Holocaust.
I think that's a good, strong statement.
One more from the Deputy White House Press Secretary Andrew Bates.
Let's get something straight that the American people understand full well,
and that is not complicated.
There was nothing good about slavery.
There was nothing good about the Holocaust.
Full stop.
And the fact that the Deputy White House Press Secretary has to release
a statement like that today just gives you a sense of how far gone the extreme
elements on the right are when it comes to these issues.
The fact that Greg Gutfeld just casually said that and
didn't think that it was a problem at all really does blow my mind.
>> Speaker 4: This is the party that pretended to be in favor of values.
What kind of sick values are these?
Look, we talk about on the show all the time.
The cultural wars are done by the right-wing to distract you from
the great American robbery as they give tax cuts to the rich over and over again.
They give every break to the corporate donors over and over again.
But even if it's just theatrics, this has gone way, way too far.
First of all, passing all those bills against the LGBTQ community isn't
theatrics those bills were passed.
They actually do discriminate against that community, and
it now is the law of the land in many of those states.
And now in this case, apparently, there's no morality left at all at Fox News.
Look, guys, I'm gonna tell you one last thing about the Holocaust.
So I've read a number of books, I took a course on it, etc, and
in one of the books, there was a story of how we found out about the gas chambers
in the first place because some Europeans that the Nazis trusted and
showed the gas chambers to and the concentration camps to were so
horrified that they turned on the Nazis and
risked their lives to get us the information in the west.
Both Germany is part of the west as well but to the UK, to the US.
And to the allies saying, you have to stop these monsters,
because the gas chambers were thick concrete walls, and
when they toured them, they saw fingernails on the concrete.
And the Nazis did the gas chambers, operated them while those guys were there,
and they couldn't get the screaming of the children out of their heads.
And these monsters are now saying, some of the Jews benefited from the Holocaust.
Greg Gutfeld said it on Fox News, and he's one of their primetime hosts.
And I'll tell you right now, there'll be no punishment, no consequences,
no nothing cuz this is what Fox News has devolved to.