House Speaker Nancy Pelosi Thursday shrugged off the destruction of a Christopher Columbus statue in Baltimore, where she grew up and her father served as mayor.
“People will do what they do,” said the California Democrat.
She was responding to a question about a 14-foot, marble statue of Christopher Columbus erected in Baltimore’s Little Italy neighborhood in 1984. A mob of protesters pulled the statue down on the Fourth of July and dumped it into the Inner Harbor. Parts of the statue have been retrieved.
Pelosi said, “It would have been a good idea” for city officials to take down the statue “from a safety standpoint” if the community does not want it, even if it is not formally decided to remove it.
“It could just be a community view,” Pelosi said. “If the community doesn’t want the statue, the statue shouldn’t be there.”
Pelosi is seeking to remove more than a dozen statues and busts on display in the Capitol that depict Confederate officers or lawmakers who espoused racist views. She’s conditioned 2021 legislative branch funding on the removal of the statues and busts.
When asked about the toppling of Columbus in Baltimore, Pelosi acknowledged America was discovered “by an Italian,” but only referenced by name another Italian, Amerigo Vespucci, the explorer America is named after.
“I don’t care much about statues,” Pelosi said.
