American Urban Radio Networks White House correspondent April Ryan participated in the Friday edition of the Fox News Channel’s (FNC) Special Report and lamented the burdens that were placed on President Obama due to his race and complained that “every time he speaks about anything on race, the right comes up and jumps him.”
Later in the panel, Associated Press White House correspondent Julie Pace stated that there will “hopefully” be changes to the nation’s gun laws and generally addressed members of Congress in telling them that “[y]ou can change” the inaction on guns.
Going to Ryan, she brought up the expectations Obama faced in response to comments by Washington Times columnist Charles Hurt about President Obama not being able to heal racial divisions despite being half-black and half-white:
[J]ust because he’s part white, part black does not necessarily mean is he going to have a kumbaya moment and everyone’s going to get together. One problem for this President. He came to the office, there was a spotlight on him because he was the first black president and anything because he has reached the highest level in the land, anything that happens in the African-American community would be spotlighted.
Ryan added that Obama “can't change what's happened through the course of time” and concluded by fretting that “politics and race will always follow him and every time he speaks about anything on race, the right comes up and jumps him.”
The topic soon after shifted to gun control and so Pace provided her thoughts about the lack of gun control efforts since the 2012 shooting in Newtown, Connecticut:
Well, I hate to be cynical, but we have been through this so many times. If you go back to Newtown, which was about as horrific as it gets in terms a shooting, there was a lot of hope that something might happen and nothing happened and I think for all these politicians that say oh everyone is going to corners and talking points, that’s on you. You can change that hopefully, we will see.
Before the segment concluded, Fox News contributor and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer masterfully summarized why gun control never becomes a reality: “The reason the debate stays the way it is because people have a sense you have to do something, but when you examine the something, you conclude it wouldn't have done anything and that's why it is stuck.”
The relevant portions of the transcript from FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier on July 8 can be found below.
FNC’s Special Report with Bret Baier
July 8, 2016
6:52 p.m. EasternBRET BAIER: Back with the panel. First, reaction to Charlie Hurt’s statement, April, that the President has failed in racial relations and frankly, safety in black communities.
APRIL RYAN: Well let me say this, just because going back to your point just because he’s part white, part black does not necessarily mean is he going to have a kumbaya moment and everyone’s going to get together. One problem for this President. He came to the office, there was a spotlight on him because he was the first black president and anything because he has reached the highest level in the land, anything that happens in the African-American community would be spotlighted. He can't change what's happened through the course of time and let me say this, politics and race will always follow him and every time he speaks about anything on race, the right comes up and jumps him.
CHARLES HURT: I get that there is unfairness here, but it's a job he sought and is he a job that his smart enough that he could do a lot better and the way you do it is by pursuing blind just and that you know —
RYAN: He wouldn't have gotten a second term, trust me.
(....)
6:55 p.m. Eastern
JULIE PACE: Well, I hate to be cynical, but we have been through this so many times. If you go back to Newtown, which was about as horrific as it gets in terms a shooting, there was a lot of hope that something might happen and nothing happened and I think for all these politicians that say oh everyone is going to corners and talking points, that’s on you. You can change that hopefully, we will see.
BAIER: Charles?
CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: The reason the debate stays the way it is because people have a sense you have to do something, but when you examine the something, you conclude it wouldn't have done anything and that's why it is stuck and the President, I thought, set the tone yesterday when he said we all go to our corners and then he pushed for criminal justice reform, which could be a great idea. But it is utterly irrelevant in this situation. It was a not a good example of the president who wants us to be open to the other side.
