White House defends Olympian who turned her back on the flag
Fox News host Jesse Watters says he's going to change the channel when Gwen Berry is competing on 'The Five'
Fox News host Jesse Watters and the panel on "The Five" reacted to U.S. athletic hammer-thrower Gwendolyn Berry intentionally snubbing the national anthem while standing on the third-place podium riser during the Olympic trials.
"If I were on the committee for the U.S. Olympic squad, I would sanction [Berry] not for the sign of disrespect—I would do it for poor sportsmanship, she was third," Watters said. "That was [first-place DeAnna Price and second-place Brooke Andersen's] moment. That was the country's moment to reflect on a great event and instead, she poisoned the chemistry of the female track and field squad and she made it all about herself."
Berry turned her back when the anthem played then covered her head with a tee shirt reading "activist athlete." After blowback from her stance, Berry responded by saying, "the anthem doesn't speak for me. It never has." Furthermore, she claimed she was "set-up" because the anthem was played when she and her U.S. Olympic colleagues took the podium as opposed to at another time during the event.
Watters said the White House tried to play "both sides" of the controversy, when Press Secretary Jen Psaki told reporters on Monday that President Biden has "great respect for the anthem and all it represents," but he recognizes the U.S. "ha[s]n't lived up to our highest ideals and it means respecting the right … to peacefully protest."
Watters asked why Berry would even want to try out for the U.S. Olympic team if the country it represents is so inherently racist and irredeemable. He added that furthermore, Berry should not want to be the beneficiary of an entity she claims to be racist.
"I don't think she knows that much about what she was doing up there. She doesn't have a long record of writings with regard to systemic racism in this country. It was a symbolic act that was vacuous in my opinion," he said. "If this country is so racist, why do you want to represent a racist country to the world? And why do you want to reap the benefits of this racist country and then get up there, placed third, and then spit in our face.
The host remarked that U.S. Olympic track-and-field is now simply added to the growing list of events that liberals have "ruined."
Later in the segment, cohost Katie Pavlich remarked about the irony of Berry seeking to represent the United States in and against a Communist country like China—where the 2022 games will be held. She noted the Chinese government is accused of several human rights violations, and referenced the history of its one-child rule.
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