Miss America 2018 forged ahead on September 10th, despite Hurricane Irma capturing much of the nation's attention. Yet rather than focus on uniting a nation in times of hardship, the pageant producers had to remain partisan and find some way to get in their digs in at the expense of President Trump. It all began when Miss Missouri was asked whether she believed the Trump campaign colluded with Russia.

Newsbusters provides a transcript: 

Sparks: There are multiple investigations into whether Trump's campaign colluded with Russia on the election. Well, did they? You're the jury: guilty or innocent and please explain your verdict.

Miss Missouri: Right now I have to say innocent, because not enough information has been revealed. We are still investigating this and I think we should investigate it to its fullest extent. If we do find the evidence that they have had collusion with Russia, the justice system should do their due diligence and they should be punished accordingly.

Miss Texas, Margana Wood, was asked by Jess Cagle about the Charlottesville protest with the KKK, white supremacists, and Antifa. Should Trump have said there were good people on both sides of the protest, he asked. Miss Wood gave a boilerplate liberal answer – Trump should have labeled the white supremacists as terrorists and made a statement sooner to make all Americans feel safe. She didn’t mention the terrorist actions of Antifa, though.

Cagle: Last month, a demonstration of neo-Nazis, white supremacists and KKK in Charlottesville, Virginia turned violent and a counter protester was killed. The president said there was shared blame with quote very fine people on both sides. Were there? Tell me yes or no, and explain.

Miss Texas: I think that the white supremacist issue, it was very obvious it was a terrorist attack. And I think that President Donald Trump should have made a statement earlier addressing the fact, and making sure all Americans feel safe in the country. That's the number one issue right now!

Maria Menounos asked the third question of Miss North Dakota, Cara Mund. The question was about the U.S. pulling out of the Paris Agreement on "man made climate change" and whether it was good or bad. Miss Mund said it was bad because she thinks climate change exists and the U.S. needs to be at the negotiating table.

Menounos: 195 countries signed the Paris Agreement, in which each country sets non-binding goals to reduce man made climate change. The U.S. is withdrawing from the agreement citing negligible environmental effects and negative economic impact. Good decision, bad decision? Which is it, and why?

Miss North Dakota: I do believe it's a bad decision, once we reject that we take ourselves out of the negotiation table. And that’s something we really need to keep in mind. There is evidence that climate change is existing so whether you believe it or not, we need to be at that table and I think it’s just a bad decision on behalf of the United States. 

This line of quesitoning continued with other contestants. Ultimately, Miss New Jersey was asked whether Confederate monuments should be removed and to our surprise she offered an interesting answer. 

Miss New Jersey, Kaitlyn Schoeffel, began, "I don’t think the answer is to get rid of these statues."

"I think the answer is to relocate them into museums. Because we are truly defined by our country's history, and I don't think it's something we need to forget. We need to always remember it and honor our history of America because it truly makes us who we are as Americans."

Precisely. And while we can agree or disagree with Schoeffel's suggestion, at least she understood that erasing history is in no way helpful to our society or future generations.

For what it's worth, however, Miss North Dakota won the title.