Greg Kelly, host of Newsmax, is being investigated by a conservative network for tweets that may ‘appeal to racists.’
Greg Kelly, the host of Newsmax, is being investigated by his conservative network for writing and deleting several tweets about race and the military on Sunday.
Kelly, the son of former New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly and a retired lieutenant colonel in the United States Marine Corps Reserve, sent the controversial tweets in an apparent attempt at sarcasm, Newsmax said in a statement to the Daily News.
“We understand Mr. Kelly posted a series of tweets that, taken together, indicated his opposition to racism. We at Newsmax will never tolerate the publication of racist or anti-racist views. We are currently investigating the matter,” network spokesperson Brian Peterson said in a statement.
“Military life had its perks, but it was not without its drawbacks. I’ll tell you what took the sting out of it – knowing that there was a Secretary of Defense who was white, just like me, while I was flying around the Pacific Ocean on ships! Made a significant difference in terms of’morale,'” one of Kelly’s Sunday tweets, which the Washington Post captured before it was deleted, read.
“So that’s the aircraft carrier USS America that I’m ‘fixin’ to land on. Simply knowing that President Clinton was a Caucasian male at the time made it all worthwhile – just ask any white male officer who served under him. We were so appreciative of his Race,” another read.
A third tweet in the series compared Kelly’s photo to that of former Defense Secretary Les Aspin.
“For instance, take a look at this guy, LES ASPIN. Due to the fact that we are both WHITE, we OBVIOUSLY LOOK IDENTICAL, which means we had a lot in common. All of the other ‘white Marines’ concurred,” he tweeted.
Kelly, 52, sparked even more outrage when he followed the ostensibly ironic tweets with one highlighting how late New York City Mayor David Dinkins, a Black man, officiated at his wedding.
“Now for the TRUTH: being a MARINE had absolutely nothing to do with RACE. It made no difference. It wasn’t “a thing”—it was the EXPERIENCE that brought us together, regardless of our circumstances. My brother is the late Mayor David Dinkens, a WWII Marine. In 1991, he officiated my wedding, and again in 2017,” he wrote.
Critics compared that tweet to the problematic proposition that a white person who has a Black friend cannot be racist.
Kelly, a former co-host of Fox 5’s “Good Day New York,” could not be reached immediately Monday.
