Father Michael Pfleger, the Catholic priest and social activist known for his ties to far-left preacher Jeremiah Wright and inflammatory racial remarks about Hillary Clinton, was brought on MSNBC Monday as an expert to discuss the rash of gun violence in Chicago, one of the country's most stringent gun control cities.
MSNBC anchor and "frequent" co-host of NBC's "Today" Tamron Hall, calling the longtime St. Sabina Catholic Church pastor someone she had known for many years, thanked the staunch Obama supporter at the interview's conclusion for being a "voice for the people of Chicago" and said she cried after watching him in the Vice documentary on the subject.
Pfleger has a highly controversial past rendering him a curious choice to come on the network to discuss the sensitive social issue.
Pfleger, while speaking at Wright's Trinity Church during the 2008 battle for the Democratic nomination between Clinton and Obama, said the former's tears before the New Hampshire primary were, according to The Weekly Standard, caused by her sense of racial entitlement:
"When Hillary was crying, and people said that was put on – I really don’t believe it was put on," Pfleger said. "I really believe that she just always thought, 'This is mine. I’m Bill’s wife. I’m white. And this is mine. I just gotta get up and step into the plate.' And then, out of nowhere, came ‘Hey, I’m Barack Obama.’ And she said, ‘Oh, damn! Where did you come from? I’m white! I’m entitled! There’s a black man stealing my show!'"
At the time, Barack Obama said in a statement that he was "deeply disappointed in Father Pfleger’s divisive, backward-looking rhetoric."
Pfleger has also courted controversy by threatening to kill a gun-store owner and by inviting anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan to speak at St. Sabina's Catholic church in Chicago, where Pfleger serves as pastor.
Pfeleger's unabashed support for Obama, who had one of the most hard-line pro-choice records in the U.S. Senate during his tenure, has also drawn criticism given the Catholic Church's pro-life stance.