"What I said was that so many of the people -- and I'm paraphrasing, too -- it was something along the lines that so many of the people were so poor and so black. What I was trying to underscore was that most of the people suffering in New Orleans were African American. Some people have tried to distort that or whatever, but it's just a fundamental fact. They were poor and they were black. ... So the question being asked by some African-American leaders and others was, "Would there have been a different response if the victims had been predominantly white?" [According to a CNN Gallup poll] the black Americans said, yes, there would have been a difference, and the white Americans said absolutely not. So one of our commentators, Jack Cafferty, was talking about the elephant in the room: this whole issue of race and poverty in America. That is how that whole issue came up."