‘This Wasn’t a Black Audience!’ TMZ Host Drops Receipts on Trump Allies Pushing Gavin Newsom Smear
TMZ founder Harvey Levin ripped Democrats and dropped receipts on Trump supporters over the outrage at comments Governor Gavin Newsom (D-CA) made about his SAT score in Atlanta.
Trump allies seized on a deceptively edited exchange from a book tour event in support of Newsom’s memoir, Young Man in a Hurry, to accuse Newsom of “racism,” and ran with the false claim that he made the remark to “a Black audience.”
In the clipped version, Newsom said “I’m like you. I’m no better than you. You know, I’m a 960 SAT guy” — but the clip omitted his reference to living with dyslexia.
On Tuesday’s edition of TMZ Live, Levin spent several minutes defending Newsom and condemning Democrats for engaging in a “circular firing squad” after the outrage erupted.
But he also took on the claim that the remarks were made to a “Black audience” — and produced receipts he said demonstrated that the event “looks like a Coldplay concert”:
Okay, he didn’t say, number one, you can’t read either.
He’s not saying that even though people are you know jumping to the conclusion that’s what he meant.
He never said that. He’s saying he was challenged. He was average in terms of academics.
And he wasn’t saying, oh, all these people in the audience, you’re assuming they’re all Black in the audience and he’s patronizing them, which now Democrats are saying!
Republicans said it, but now Democrats are saying this. That he’s patronizing the audience and that it is an affront to Black people.
Well, number one, Mayor Andre Dinkins said, “You don’t need to tell us when we should be offended in Atlanta,” which I thought was a pretty brilliant comment.
But! I want to show you the audience. It looks like a Coldplay concert! I mean, look at this audience! This is not a Black audience!
It is a mixed audience. And it, if anything, is predominantly White.
He in no way was suggesting in any way that, oh, you people must be, you know, have 940s on your SAT.
He was making a point and making a joke that if you had a 940, I’m not gonna look down on you. That’s a joke. It means we’re all in the same boat. Average.
That is not a racist comment, and you have to look at the audience to understand who he’s talking to.
This wasn’t a Black audience! It wasn’t the point. Even if it was a Black audience, that wasn’t the point.
But, you know, Republicans jumped on this, and they said, oh, look at Gavin Newsom, he’s racist.
And the Democrats bit the bait. And not all of them, but enough of them that this has become an issue.
And this is what Barack Obama meant when he talked about Democrats having circular firing squads, that they are just trying to kill each other.
This is a bogus point! I’m sorry, this is not me endorsing Gavin Newsome. It’s just saying enough!
That at a point, you know, every comment that the most sensitive person who doesn’t even understand what’s being said gets offended. It suddenly becomes a thing.
This is not a thing! If you want to look at Gavin Newsom and talk about his record in California, great! This is stupid!
Watch above via TMZ Live.
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