Fox News Channel’s Laura Ingraham[1] is receiving blowback for possibly defending an anti-Semitic white supremacist Thursday as a “prominent voice censored by social media.”
“Facebook[2] now, what do they monitor, ‘hate’? That sounds good until you realize hate — These are some of the people they’ve shunned,” Ms. Ingraham[3] said on her show “The Ingraham Angle,” displaying a graphic of prominent conservative voices who were banned from Facebook[4], 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[5] 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[6] Ms. Ingraham[7] of supporting a racist.
In response, Ms. Ingraham[8] 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[9], saying the inclusion of Mr. Nehlen was nothing more than an advocation for free speech.
“It is obscene to suggest that Laura Ingraham[10] was defending Paul Nehlen’s despicable actions, especially when some of the names on the graphic were pulled from an Associated Press report[11] on best known political extremists banned from Facebook[12],” the network said in a statement.
Anyone who watches ...
Laura[13]’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.