Rep. Barbara Lee appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes last night and took on Fox News host Bill O’Reilly for derisively referring to her as a “race hustler.”
Lee has been outspoken about recent remarks made by conservative congressman Paul Ryan in which he suggested poverty was a cultural problem in inner cities. He appeared to single out black men in particular, suggesting that they don’t know the “value and the culture of work.”
Ryan’s remarks were heavily criticized as insensitive and Lee called them a “thinly veiled racial attack.”
That comment drew the ire of O’Reilly, who singled Lee out when Ryan appeared as a guest on this show on March 25.
“They don’t want a conversation. With all due respect to you because I think you are a good man. They don’t want a conversation. They don’t want to solve the problem. These race hustlers make a big living, and they get voted into office, by portraying their constituents as victims, and it’s all your fault and it’s my fault, it’s the rich people’s fault, it’s the Republicans’ fault,” said O’Reilly.
On All In, Lee fought back, calling O’Reilly’s statements “disgusting and divisive” and added that they “should never be accepted in our national discourse.”
Watch the video below to see Lee’s full interview:
