White House Condemns Fox News Over Host’s Holocaust Comments

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The News The White House denounced Fox News this week over comments by one of its hosts, Greg Gutfeld, that some Jews “had to be useful” as a means for survival in Nazi concentration camps, calling his remarks “an obscenity.” Mr. Gutfeld, who took over the 10 p.m. time slot last week as part of a reshuffling of programming at Fox, made the comments during a debate on “The Five” about Florida’s new African American history curriculum. New instructions for middle school students, championed by the state’s governor, Ron DeSantis, say students should be instructed that “slaves developed skills which, in some instances, could be applied for their personal benefit,” a depiction that has drawn widespread rebuke. During an exchange with Jessica Tarlov, a co-host who equated the new history standards to saying Jews derived some benefit from being imprisoned during the Holocaust, Mr. Gutfeld asked her about the work of Viktor Frankl, a Jewish psychiatrist who wrote about his struggle for survival at Auschwitz and other Nazi camps. “Did you ever read ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’?” Mr. Gutfeld said. “Vik Frankl talks about how you had to survive in a concentration camp by having skills. You had to be useful. Utility. Utility kept you alive.” Ms. Tarlov did not address Mr. Gutfeld’s question directly, instead saying she was concerned about middle school children being taught what Florida had set in its new curriculum. A White House spokesman, Andrew Bates, released a statement on Tuesday condemning Fox News for broadcasting Mr. Gutfeld’s comments, calling them “a horrid, dangerous, extreme lie that insults the memory of the millions of Americans who suffered from the evil of enslavement.” He added, “There was nothing good about slavery; there was nothing good about the Holocaust.” Fox News has not commented on Mr. Gutfeld’s statement.