Trump Press Secretary Hits Back at French Politician Wanting The Statue of Liberty Returned: Be Grateful You’re ‘Not Speaking German’
White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt said Monday a French politician who called on the US to return the Statue of Liberty should be thankful he is “not speaking German.”
Leavitt made the comment after she was asked by Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy about comments made over the weekend by French MEP Raphaël Glucksmann.
Glucksmann, who Politico reported is with France’s Socialists and Democrats group, said America no longer represented the principles on which it was founded since President Donald Trump’s inauguration.
In response to his comments, Leavitt referenced U.S. intervention in Europe in World War I and World War II when American troops freed France from German occupation.
Doocy said, “There is now a member of the European Parliament from France who does not think the U.S. represents the values of the Statue of Liberty anymore.”
The Fox News reporter asked, “They want the Statue of Liberty back. So, is President Trump going to send the Statue of Liberty back to France?”
Leavitt replied, “Absolutely not, and my advice to that unnamed, low-level French politician would be to remind them that it’s only because of the United States of America that the French are not speaking German right now. So they should be very grateful to our great country.
Speaking to reporters in France, Glucksman said, “We’re going to say to the Americans who have chosen to side with the tyrants, to the Americans who fired researchers for demanding scientific freedom: ‘Give us back the Statue of Liberty.'”
He added, “We gave it to you as a gift, but apparently you despise it. So it will be just fine here at home.”
France, America’s oldest European ally, presented the Statue of Liberty to the U.S. as a gift in 1886.
The French Navy was instrumental in helping US forces defeat the British during the American Revolution and the treaty to end the war for independence was signed in Paris.
Watch above via C-SPAN.
