"But you don't want riots right?" asked Fox News host Dan Bongino during Saturday's episode of Unfiltered. "You don't want riots correct? And violence, I just want to get you on the record here," Bongino pressed Newsome.
"I'm going on the record right now. As Dr. King said, riots are the voice of the unheard. It's a natural occurrence that if people continue to be traumatized, and oppressed, they will lash out," replied Newsome on-air.
"Do you condemn riots and burning down buildings after a police use-of-force incident you don't like?" Bongino straight-up asked after Newsome continued to dance around the Fox News host's continued questioning.
"No," Newsome responded. "What I'll say is, I understand when a police officer unjustifiably kills someone, why people lash out. I understand that completely."
"I'm not going to condemn, nor am I going to condone it," Newsome added.
Following further questioning by Bongino, and an attempt to draw a parallel to the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York City, Newsome added that "I don't promote it, but I don't condemn it," regarding the violent rioting in the streets.
"Isn't that cowardly?" Bongino asked. "'I'm not going to condemn it, but I'm not going to condone it -- so I don't want to take a stand'? ... You seem to talk a lot of junk and then when I put you on the spot you won't answer a damn question. Do you condone violence or you condemn violence? You're all over the place. Just condemn violence and burning of buildings down. How hard is it?"
After the back and forth, Newsome began taking his audio equipment off telling Bongino, "God bless you, man. I'm out of here," after his persistent questioning.
The questioning from Bongino comes days after Newsome threatened "riots" and "bloodshed" in the streets if Mayor-elect Eric Adams reinstated the police department's anti-crime units which were disbanded at the height of last summer's Black Lives Matter protests and riots across the country.
"If he thinks that they're going to go back to the old ways of policing, then we are going to take to the streets again. There will be riots, there will be fire and there will be bloodshed because we believe in defending our people," Newsome said after a meeting with the elected Democrat last week.
"We will shut the city down. We will shut down City Hall, and we will give him hell and make it a nightmare," added Chivona Newsome, a Black Lives Matter of Greater New York co-founder and Hawk Newsome's sister.
"The guy's a coward," said Bongino. "Listen, let me just say unequivocally I've lived by a set of principles. I completely condemn political violence, that is not a means to an end in a constitutional republic. We do our damage in the election booth. If you can't say that, and you are not roundly condemned by the same media condemning Kyle Rittenhouse then you in the media are a bunch of frauds."
"This guy should never be welcome in polite company again, implying that bloodshed, rioting and fires in the street are somehow a path to a more prosperous, better constitutional republic," Bongino continued.
"He came on the show, but I got no time for cowards and losers. And believe me, I called him out on it. It starts out okay, and don't end well for Hawk down because I don't like fake tough guys. I'm tired of them," Bongino stated.
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