During an appearance on CBS News on Sunday, Vice President Mike Pence refused to say the phrase “Black lives matter” and accused the leaders of the BLM movement of pushing a “political agenda of the radical left.”
Asked by reporter John Dickerson why he refused to say the phrase as demonstrators have called on him to do, Pence paused and said:
“All my life, I’ve been inspired by the example of the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. When I was in Congress, I traveled to his home church in Montgomery with Congressman John Lewis. I walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge on the anniversary of Bloody Sunday. I cherish the progress that we have made toward a more perfect union for African Americans throughout our history.”
He added: “And I’ve aspired throughout my career to be a part of that ongoing work. It’s really a heart issue for me. And as a pro-life American, I also believe that all life matters, born and unborn. But what I see in the leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement is a political agenda of the radical left that would defund the police, that would—”
“Leave that out of it. Just the phrase,” Dickerson cut in.
“— tear down monuments,” Pence went on, “that would press a radical left agenda that, and support calls for the kind of violence that has beset the very communities that they say that they’re advocating for.”
“So you won’t say Black lives matter?” Dickerson went on to ask Pence.
“John, I really believe that all lives matter. And that’s where the heart of the American people lies,” Pence responded.
Pence refuses to utter the words Black Lives Matter on Face the Nation because the leaders of the movement have “a political agenda of the radical left.” On the same day Trump retweeted “White power” video from the Villages https://t.co/kanLBN8LZx
— Duty To Warn 🔉 (@duty2warn) June 28, 2020
Pence’s refusal to say the words comes one week after he also declined to say the phrase during an interview with Philadelphia outlet 6ABCAction News. He instead said, “all lives matter,” a phrase that has been used by Trump supporters and white supremacists, in counter to “Black Lives Matter.”
