Radio host Glenn Beck told his listeners on Friday that media coverage of President Trump’s “animal” comments regarding the MS-13 gang has forced him to join Team MAGA.
Coverage by The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Associated Press and other news outlets that led readers to believe Mr. Trump called all immigrants “animals” was Mr. Beck’s political breaking point this week. The long-time skeptic of Mr. Trump said he is ready to pull the lever for the Republican come 2020.
“If you can drive me to the point to where I say, ’You know what? I’ve had enough,’ I’ll vote for him in 2020. Gladly I’ll vote for him in 2020 — and not really even on his record, which we’ll talk about here in a second, is pretty damn amazing. But if you can drive me to the point to where I’ll wear one of these stupid red hats, I’m telling you you’re making a gigantic mistake — and I welcome it,” Mr. Beck said.
The Blaze’s captain said he was stunned by organizations that simply deleted tweets when public outcry become too much to ignore.
“So what did you do yesterday? What did you do after you said, ’Oh, Donald Trump hates all immigrants. Look what he said. He called them all animals.’ You just deleted the tweets,” Mr. Beck exclaimed. “You deleted them. And then you have the audacity to furthering the conversation on, ’well, you know, even if he did mean that they’re not animals. Shut up. Shut up! If those animals took your daughter and did what they’ve done to other Americans’ daughters, you’d call them an animals. And if they’re not animals then I don’t know what is.”
AP has deleted a tweet from late Wednesday on Trump’s “animals” comment about immigrants because it wasn’t made clear that he was speaking after a comment about gang members.
— The Associated Press (@AP) May 17, 2018
The conservative blog HotAir reacted to the announcement by saying the former Trump skeptic seemed “sincere.”
“Even when he was drawing conspiracy flow charts on his Fox News chalkboard back in the day, he seemed to believe every word of what he was saying,” HotAir contributor Allah Pundit wrote. “It’s arguably his defining characteristic as a media personality: Whatever he’s saying at a given moment, he really, really means it. But he’s going to get blasted anyway for ’selling out’ by some anti-Trumpers who’ve spent the last three years appreciating him as a rare voice of MAGA skepticism among the marquee names of conservative talk radio. Given the Blaze’s troubles and Hannity’s ballooning success at Fox, this’ll be read as Beck throwing in the towel and genuflecting before Trump to regain some relevance and protect what’s left of his bottom line.”
White House Press Sarah Sanders chided the media earlier in the week for taking Mr. Trump out of context.
“If the media and liberals want to defend MS-13 they’re more than welcome to,” she told CBS’ Steven Portnoy on Thursday. “Frankly, I don’t think the term that the president used was strong enough. MS-13 has done heinous acts. It took an animal to stab a man 100 times and decapitate him and rip his heart out. It took an animal to beat a woman they were sex trafficking with a bat, 28 times, indenting part of her body. And it took an animal to kidnap and rape a 13-year-old Houston girl.”
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
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