Fox News called out for segment suggesting Native Americans are addicted to government help

Fox News has been called out for a segment suggesting that Native Americans are addicted to government help.

Host Rachel Campos-Duffy said on Wednesday that hardship experienced within Native American communities has “everything to do with government dependency” and “alcoholism”.

Fellow Fox News host Jesse Watters chimed in, saying that liberals “make them out to be victims” and will strive to “send more slush funds to the reservations”.

Ms Campos-Duffy blasted Vice President Kamala Harris for saying that America needs to face its “shameful past” as she recognised Indigenous Peoples’ Day on Monday. She added that explorers coming from Europe, including Christopher Columbus, “ushered in a wave of devastation for tribal nations, perpetrating violence, stealing land, and spreading disease”.

“Christopher Columbus, by the way, is the first victim of cancel culture,” Ms Campos-Duffy claimed and said that Native Americans “were just as brutal” as European colonisers.

“We know they actually had slaves, including African-American slaves, they conquered tribes after Columbus,” the Fox News host added. “If we are going to apply modern-day standards, we have to apply it on both sides.”

Mr Watters said that “an incredible amount of atrocities” were committed by Native Americans.

“They burned villages, raped women, seized children, took the people they defeated, took their land, scalped people,” Sean Duffy, a former Republican congressman and husband of Ms Campos-Duffy, said during the segment. “It was a horrible time all across the globe. But they want to apply the ‘woke’ standard that they have today on Christopher Columbus, but nobody else in the world!”

Mr Duffy said slamming Christopher Columbus was part of a liberal plan to “get the American people to actually hate our founding” in order to “seep in their socialism and remake this country into something of a Venezuelan failed state”.

“And the lie isn’t just about our past,” Ms Campos-Duffy said. “The real lie is with conditions for Native Americans right now. The conditions from Native Americans have everything to do with government dependency, cycles of poverty and alcoholism, and family breakdowns, and these are things that the Democrats don’t want to talk about.”

She said that Democrats are telling Native Americans that “all the things you’re experiencing has to do with white people and racism in the past”.

“No, it has to do with government policies as well,” she added.

“Yeah, they’re just going to try to send more slush funds to the reservations, and make them out to be victims, and then have them keep voting for Democrats,” Mr Watters said.

Twitter users were quick to slam Fox News for the segment.

“I just don’t even have the words to describe this vile statement!” Jenyfer Johnson wrote.

"I can't wait for the day cancel culture takes these disgusting excuses for human beings out," another account holder said.

“Is there a ‘villains 101’ course that these people take before they are ‘in’ the GOP? It’s like they try to one-up each other in hate speech,” a third wrote.

Scott Saia tweeted that Ms Campos-Duffy “is beyond ignorant, she’s straight-up racist”.

“Fox News hosts, while claiming that the left smears America, smear native Americans as alcoholics hooked on government money,” another Twitter user wrote.

“Fox News once again ramping up its racist rhetoric and failing to acknowledge the basic history of this country,” one account holder added.