Failed 2016 Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum said former President Barack Obama didn’t comment on Black-on-white crimes but always made time to make a statement about the white-on-Black.
The former Republican Pennsylvania Senator sparred with political commentator Angela Rye and others during the Thursday, Feb. 9, broadcast of “Wolf with Wolf Blitzer” over President Donald Trump’s lack of response to the recent terrorist attack on a mosque in Quebec. Santorum claimed that the president’s silence is typical and Trump will not tweet things that don’t “fit with the narrative that the administration is trying to put forward.”
He insisted that Obama had an implicit racial bias against white people and was guilty of the same silence.
“This previous president, when there were attacks by anybody who shot someone Black, the president would be out there with some sort of statement to talk about it,” Santorum says without providing examples. “If it was the reverse, you never heard anything. So, there is a narrative that the White House tries to drive on issues that they care about.”
CNN political reporter Jim Sciuto interjected and pressed Santorum to clarify his statements.
“Pres. Obama didn’t comment about shootings of noncolored people?” Sciuto asks. “I remember him being very vocal on Sandy Hook.”
“Well, that was a mass school shooting,” Santorum replies, insinuating that mass shootings are exceptions to his claims. “I’m talking about … I’m talking about … Look, you know as well as I do, Jim, that when there were white-on-Black crimes, the president was all over it and when there was a Black-on-white crime, that was simply not the case. This is not something new.”
Rye came right out and called Santorum’s statements lies. She added that Trump’s executive orders are deliberately destroying the relationship Obama built that would improve rapport between police and Black communities.
“I think that it’s horrible to tarnish Barack Obama’s legacy in saying he did not comment on Black-on-white crime or when there were shootings of officers or what have you,” Rye says. “That is simply not true. I do think that, at this point, this president has an obligation to say something.
“We are just a month or so into this new year and there have already been a 100-plus people who have been killed by law enforcement.”
