‘I Need You to Stop!’ MSNBC’s Ali Velshi Tears Brit Historian Several New Ones in Unbelievable Royal Smackdown
MSNBC host Ali Velshi tore into NBC News British Historian Dr. Andrew Roberts over placing Queen Elizabeth II‘s death and succession in context with the UK’s history of brutal colonialism.
One facet of the death of British monarch Queen Elizabeth II has been a war of words over how much attention should be paid to the brutal history that her crown represents.
That war exploded all over MSNBC screens Saturday morning when Roberts tried to, in Velshi’s estimation, “whitewash” that history, which Velshi referenced in his show open.
Velshi just went to town on Roberts, who made a decent point about slavery, and less effective point about “even evil monsters” like Vladimir Putin writing to praise the monarchy:
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: I think that’s wildly overstated, frankly. I think when you look at all the opinion polls, we’re about 80 to 85% in favor of having a constitutional monarchy. Whoever’s in in on the throne. So I think this is extremely overdone, frankly. Rather, I’m afraid to say, as your introduction was, if we had given so much pain to people throughout history, why was Prince Charles chosen by every single Commonwealth country, many of which are former imperial countries, as the head of the Commonwealth, we abolished slavery thirty–
ALI VELSHI: Andrew, hold on a second. Are you really denying what I just said about British colonialism? Are you really doing that? Andrew, are you really doing that?
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: Yes. We abolished slavery…
ALI VELSHI: Andrew This is not a propaganda show!
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: Before you did, and we–
ALI VELSHI: Andrew I need you to stop! I need you to stop for a second. Are you really taking issue with with the horrors of colonialism?
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS:I’m, I’m certainly taking issue with your remarks about slavery, which we abolished 32 years before you did. We didn’t have to kill 600,000 people in a civil war over it.
ALI VELSHI: So you you think that that’s fine, that there are people all over the world who are born in colonial countries? Because when I was born, the British Empire still existed. And that’s okay for everybody to say.
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: Which country were you born in?
ALI VELSHI: Kenya.
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: Right. And yet the Kenyans not only supported the appointment of Prince Charles, now King Charles as the head of the commonwealth, we’ve just had a fantastic statement from the president of Kenya saying what a wonderful thing —
ALI VELSHI: And the president of the United States is going to attend her funeral. The fact is–
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: Then why on earth do you want to concentrate on the, only the negative things of an institution, which is 100 years ago now?
ALI VELSHI: I can read you my, my, my opening again. I didn’t concentrate on it. I said that there are many people in the world, many millions of people in the world. I don’t know if you have social media, but you should check it out — who don’t think we should be celebrating the British monarchy right now. And many in Britain, by the way. Many in Britain.
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: No, nnot many in Britain, not. Where are these people in Britain? You know, as I say, between ten and 15% of people don’t want a moment.
ALI VELSHI: You’re just pprepared to dismiss ten or 15% of the British population who thinks that’s an anachronism.
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: I think if I think of 80 or 85% of people believe anything, you’ll far more likely and far more right to concentrate on them rather than the tiny minority. It’s a bit like people who believe in, I dunno, zoastrianism.
ALI VELSHI: So I actually think one of the failings of our history is that we don’t concentrate on minorities or the views of minorities. So you and I will differ in that. I actually think that when when there are minorities who don’t see things the same way as everyone else, we should actually shine a light on them.
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: On a great national occasion like this, I really think to concentrate on what 10% of people think rather than what, 80 to 85% people say.
ALI VELSHI: There’s a lot more people in this world who don’t see it the same way, who grew up under the yoke of colonialism and the British Empire.
DR. ANDREW ROBERTS: The way in which the entire, the leaders of the entire world are writing to, even evil monsters like Putin, are writing to King Charles and saying what a great thing his mother’s reign was, which started as you actually had in your opening. In your intro, you had to talk about the great imperial family to which we all belong. You know, the idea that that is in some way a an attack on our past is is further negative.
ALI VELSHI: Well, it’s it’s nice to be able to whitewash that sort of thing. Andrew And I’m glad that you closed off with the idea that even Vladimir Putin had nice things to say about the queen that sort of steals the conversation for us. Andrew, thanks very much for joining us, NBC News British historian.
Watch above via MSNBC.
