Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham is receiving blowback for possibly defending an anti-Semitic white supremacist Thursday as a “prominent voice censored by social media.”
“Facebook now, what do they monitor, ’hate’? That sounds good until you realize hate — These are some of the people they’ve shunned,” Ms. Ingraham said on her show “The Ingraham Angle,” displaying a graphic of prominent conservative voices who were banned from Facebook, one of which is Wisconsin Republican Paul Nehlen.
Mr. Nehlen, who waged a losing 2016 primary bid against then-House Speaker Rep. Paul Ryan in the 2016 primary, was banned on Twitter for posting about the “Jewish question” often.
He called for a race war recently that would wipe out black people and jews, suggesting the war will begin with “some group of chimped-out n*****s” attacking white senior citizens.
The controversial segment was blasted online, including from CNN anchor Jake Tapper, who used a screenshot from one of Mr. Nehlen’s tweets to accuse Ms. Ingraham of supporting a racist.
In response, Ms. Ingraham put the onus on Mr. Tapper, who happens to be Jewish, saying sharing his screenshots makes bigots “very happy.”
“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,” she said.
Fox News Network defended Ms. Ingraham, saying the inclusion of Mr. Nehlen was nothing more than an advocation for free speech.
“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.
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,” they said.
• Bailey Vogt can be reached at bvogt@washingtontimes.com.
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