Asked to comment on Newt Gingrich’s statement that President Obama has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” world view, RNC chairman Michael Steele defended Gingrich.

KING: Former Speaker of the House, the man who is moving around as if he might run for president, said that the President of the United States has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” view of the world.

STEELE: Who said that?

KING: Newt Gingrich.

STEELE: Okay.

KING: Is that an appropriate way to have this conversation, as a Republican leader and as a black man? Is that how you want to have this conversation?

STEELE: I don’t know what being black has to do with it, but —

KING: You don’t think saying the President has a “Kenyan, anti-colonial” worldview is perhaps trying to play to the lowest common denominator in politics?

STEELE: No, I don’t think so, no. How do you make that stretch? Where’s his dad from?

KING: What does that have to do with —

STEELE: He’s of Kenyan, African descent. He has an African, continental descent. So I don’t know where you’re going with that. But let me just say —

KING: So you don’t think it’s race-baiting or playing to the birther crowd?

STEELE: No, I don’t. I don’t see that stretch. I know some folks out there want to, but I don’t see that. I know Newt. I know that’s not his mindset on that. He’s talking about a worldview that comes from a different part, whether it’s Europe, the African continent.

Ugh.