Pete Hegseth on Students Calling for the Statue of Fmr. Princeton President To Be Torn Down: It’s About Erasing History

EXCERPT:

HEGSETH: "By the way, I have inside info this may be a done deal. They may cave to the students, by the way. I was an undergraduate when they put the statue up in 2001, because there is no Princeton without John Witherspoon. There is no country without John Witherspoon. He was the only clergy to sign the Declaration of Independence. He was the teacher of James Madison, who was a mentee of his. Yes, he owned two slaves, like every other rich white guy in that time, and that was wrong. But he was also adamantly anti-slavery. He fought to try to end slavery in the future and released his own slaves at the age of 28. So this is, again, pure presentism. You can’t acknowledge any of the goodness of this lover of liberty, who basically was part of fomenting the revolution when it began. Got to rip it down, got to erase history. It’s not enough to understand it. Gotta get rid of it.”