This morning, Jake Tapper felt compelled to offer up a reminder about what a piece of sh*t failed GOP congressional candidate Paul Nehlen is:
Just a reminder that Paul Nehlen is a racist and if you’re defending him that’s what you’re defending. Cc @FoxNews pic.twitter.com/kQJRtmecLe
— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) May 31, 2019
A few hours later, Laura Ingraham apparently felt compelled to respond:
Retweeting screenshots of despicable old tweets by racists and/or anti-semites must make those racists & anti-semites very happy. Unfortunately it does zero to elevate the debate in America. cc. @CNN
— Laura Ingraham (@IngrahamAngle) May 31, 2019
… this is her response? https://t.co/Rk7OWpxedH
— Rasputin's Murderess???⚰ (@pipandbaby) May 31, 2019
We’d love to know how Laura Ingraham is elevating the debate in America when she goes to bat for rabid Neo-Nazis like Paul Nehlen — which is exactly what she did on her show last night:
Laura Ingraham Defends White Supremacist and Anti-Semite as a 'Prominent Voice' https://t.co/xtRJzYsrP0
— Mediaite (@Mediaite) May 31, 2019
More from Mediaite:
The Fox News host turned to Candace Owens, a commentator who cut her teeth at notorious conspiracy factory Infowars, for comment. Ingraham argued criticism of the [doctored video of Nancy Pelosi] was part of a “larger effort to silence conservative voices ahead of the 2020 election.”
“Facebook now, what do they monitor, ‘hate’? That sounds good until you realize hate — These are some of the people they’ve shunned,” Ingraham said, showing off a number of “prominent voices” banned from Facebook, including our white supremacist, Paul Nehlen.
“It’s people who believe in border enforcement, people who believe in national sovereignty,” Ingraham said.
“People who believe in black America,” Owens added.
Sorry, Candace, but Paul Nehlen doesn’t so much believe in black America in that he believes that blacks are bad for America. Well, blacks, Hispanics, Jews … anyone who isn’t white enough for him, basically. For Laura Ingraham to whitewash — no pun intended — Nehlen’s racist, anti-Semitic views as belief in border enforcement and national sovereignty is intellectually dishonest and morally irresponsible.
Arguing that this dude is a conservative is the most blindingly insulting thing I can imagine for conservatism. https://t.co/cuK2r91og4 pic.twitter.com/ESdGCjTzrG
— Jane Coaston (@cjane87) May 31, 2019
The only thing Paul Nehlen is interested in conserving is neo-Nazism.
Last night on her Fox News program, @IngrahamAngle defended Paul Nehlen who once tweeted this.
And this is relatively tame compared to his other commments/rhetoric. pic.twitter.com/C4JxPE5OQJ
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 31, 2019
2. For those asking, Ingraham including Nehlen on a list of “Prominent Voices Censored On Social Media.”
Nehlen was pushed out of Breitbart and kicked off Gab. pic.twitter.com/eHBFfE97oE
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 31, 2019
3. Nehlen's tweets are not "old," the tweet I included at the top of this thread is from early 2018
From Laura's show: "Facebook, what do they monitor? 'Hate'? That sounds good until you realize 'Hate' means — These are some of the people they shunned.."https://t.co/uMSTbYacrO
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 31, 2019
4. Last year, in an interview with @johncardillo, Paul Nehlen tried to get John to refer to David Duke as "Dr. Duke"
Then when asked about the Holocaust, he said: “I don’t have a position on it. I haven’t researched it enough to know. I think a lot of people died in World War 2" pic.twitter.com/mldFE7Dpj9
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 31, 2019
pretty sure Nehlen does, in fact, have a position on the Holocaust pic.twitter.com/IDRlCKZtjN
— Adrenochrome Harvester (@ClenchedFisk) May 31, 2019
Ingraham’s been flirting with the Alt-Right for a long time now … but this constitutes a full-blown love affair.
Leave it to Laura Ingraham… https://t.co/rMdlV3ZOUm
— Esoteric Jeff (@EsotericCD) May 31, 2019
It’s shameful. And it’s disgusting.
i give this one a very solid Yikes
— Peter Westeros (@PeterWesteros) May 31, 2019
I can't believe she is this much of an idiot.
— Pradheep J. Shanker (@Neoavatara) May 31, 2019
"In a recent appearance on the podcast 'Goy Talk'"
…
I got nothin'.
— Rasputin's Murderess???⚰ (@pipandbaby) May 31, 2019
She did 'zero to elevate the debate' by giving a lunatic like Paul Nehlen attention.
— Rasputin's Murderess???⚰ (@pipandbaby) May 31, 2019
Lordy, she's another one of the "conservatives" with whom I want nothing to do, at all, ever.
— ?K Penguin Knees ? (@KneesPenguin) May 31, 2019
Editor’s note: This post has been updated with additional tweets.
***
Update:
Yeah … this is not a great look for Fox News:
NEW: Fox News defends Laura Ingraham promoting virulent anti-Semite Paul Nehlen, calls her a "fierce protector" of "freedom of speech" https://t.co/QECN7Zs63E
— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) May 31, 2019
More from the Daily Beast:
“It is obscene to suggest that Laura Ingraham was defending Paul Nehlen’s despicable actions especially when some of the names on the graphic were pulled from an Associated Press report on best known political extremists banned from Facebook,” the network said in a statement to The Daily Beast. “Anyone who watches Laura’s show knows that she is a fierce protector of freedom of speech and the intent of the segment was to highlight the growing trend of unilateral censorship in America.”
Oh, come on.
5. Statement from Fox News on the Paul Nehlen/Laura Ingraham situation
Here is the AP story they reference in their statement: https://t.co/OowK7GShbM pic.twitter.com/iypk6Zfx2P
— Yashar Ali ? (@yashar) May 31, 2019
“It is obscene to suggest that Laura Ingraham was defending Paul Nehlen’s despicable actions”
It's not obscene. She did not identify his despicable actions, she merely talked about 'people who believe in border enforcement', which is not exactly how I'd characterize him. https://t.co/KMsugvGpaz
— Rasputin's Murderess???⚰ (@pipandbaby) May 31, 2019
Ingraham wasn’t being “a fierce protector of free speech”; she was willfully glossing over an anti-Semitic, racist neo-Nazi’s anti-Semitism, racism, and neo-Nazism in the name of shining a light on censorship. There’s no way to spin what she did as a positive.
This is nonsense. Why didn't she include Louis Farrakhan if that was the case? https://t.co/4WTb0lCRZE
— Jay Caruso (@JayCaruso) May 31, 2019
This is pure gaslighting. The graphic was shown directly after Ingraham jabbed Facebook for justifying the bans as targeting "hate" and then she described them all as "people who believe in border enforcement, people who believe in national sovereignty." https://t.co/yH3IZHcpi8
— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) May 31, 2019
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