Responding to MSNBC’s Joy Reid blasting his pro-Trump event as a ‘danger’ during the Covid-19 pandemic, activist Brandon Straka silenced her by calling out hypocrisy on BLM coverage, and a refusal to cover a recent attack on him.
“So they’re just gonna go back to their screaming rallies like there is no Covid, just because their Dear Leader needs the ego boost,” Reid tweeted on Saturday, in reaction to video from a rally held by Straka in Chicago in support of President Donald Trump.
The video shows people, some wearing masks and some not, holding pro-Trump signs and chanting, “walk away,” the name of a campaign founded by Straka to encourage people to leave the Democratic Party.
“Then they’ll be in supermarkets and at outdoor restaurants and Home Depot with you, putting your health at risk. THAT’s the danger to the suburbs,” Reid added, likely in reference to criticism over Black Lives Matter protests in cities like Portland increasingly targeting residential neighborhoods for their demonstrations.
So they’re just gonna go back to their screaming rallies like there is no Covid, just because their Dear Leader needs the ego boost. Then they’ll be in supermarkets and at outdoor restaurants and Home Depot with you, putting your health at risk. THAT’s the danger to the suburbs. https://t.co/IUuc9bISuD
Reid, like many others in the media and in the Democratic Party, has been supportive of Black Lives Matter protests across the nation despite the pandemic, yet has become increasingly critical of the president holding campaign rallies… because of the pandemic.
On the very same day she attacked Straka’s event, Reid blasted a DC event characterizing the president as a “Covid superspreader.”
Great way to create a Covid superspreader. https://t.co/h2mHbHPPnb
Straka sought to point out the apparent hypocrisy in this when he replied to Reid; he also challenged her to cover an “anti-gay attack” he’d recently gone through, allegedly at the hands of BLM protesters.
“Hi @JoyAnnReid-I’m the guy whose event you’re criticizing here.Since I have your attention, I’m also the gay man who was anti-gay attacked just over 24 hours ago by #BLM (see link). When you’re finished blaming me for Covid, would u mind telling this story?” he tweeted.
Hi @JoyAnnReid-I’m the guy whose event you’re criticizing here.Since I have your attention, I’m also the gay man who was anti-gay attacked just over 24 hours ago by #BLM (see link). When you’re finished blaming me for Covid, would u mind telling this story?https://t.co/Teh65AiZlLhttps://t.co/MuJkL5sX8V
Straka linked to video of BLM protesters threatening him and using homophobic phrases against him.
Every LGBT person in ??should be terrified by the direction we are headed in. #BLM has violently attacked numerous LGBT ppl this summer.They nearly killed a group of trans women in LA last week. It is excused/ignored by liberal media.@donlemon@TheEllenShow@andersoncooper@andypic.twitter.com/nNvHeh1ySO
Straka explained to Fox News he was accosted on Friday when leaving the Republican National Convention. He said a group of protesters hurled homophobic slurs at him and his colleagues, and also hit one of them, and spat on another.
“They started hurling homophobic slurs at us, anti-gay slurs, and then they walked up to Mikey Harlow, spit in his face. They threw a drink at me, threw a cup in my face, and then they actually hit Libby Albert, the girl that was with me,” he said.
Straka also pointed to videos of BLM protests that Reid has not called out with the same fervor, including one showing people dancing to a DJ and ignoring social distancing guidances issued by the CDC.
Also, @JoyAnnReid, the same night that my gay friend and I were anti-gay attacked on video by Black Lives Matter (see my twitter page for video), this was going on just blocks from where we were attacked: https://t.co/Oo2QfghxuO
Brandon, her mind is closed. She only sees what she wants to see.
Not for nothing @JoyAnnReid but if this is OK then why wouldn’t rallies for Trump be OK. Or is COVID-19 so super intelligent as to avoid rallies that aren’t necessarily pro Trump pic.twitter.com/7ReiXRxr1W
While Reid has not taken up the offer to cover the video, she has continued defending BLM protesters and pushed back against the narrative that demonstrations have turned to “rioting” and insisted it’s actually people “on the right” behind the violence seen in videos day after day.
“Let me repeat this for those inventing the idea of ‘Black Lives Matter riots.’ BLM doesn’t ‘riot.’ They march against police violence. And note that those caught setting fires, assaulting and shooting people are consistently of the RIGHT, not the left,” she tweeted, linking to an article from June that simply stated many arrested during the Seattle protests were not from the area and a majority of them were white.
Let me repeat this for those inventing the idea of “Black Lives Matter riots.” BLM doesn’t “riot.” They march against police violence. And note that those caught setting fires, assaulting and shooting people are consistently of the RIGHT, not the left. https://t.co/3qSk5Ym7l7
Rioting in cities like Portland and, more recently, Kenosha have raged on since the June article, and video shows Black Lives Matter protesters are not exclusively black, as Reid appears to be suggesting.
“I forgot- you can’t spread covid when you’re ‘fighting racism,’” Straka wrote, in reaction to the vague evidence that BLM protesters do not “riot.”
I forgot- you can’t spread covid when you’re “fighting racism” https://t.co/Oo2QfghxuO
Others on the Left who have shown support for increasingly violent Black Lives Matter protests have continued criticizing Trump and his campaign rallies, with one senator even suggesting on Saturday that the president is purposefully trying to spread Covid-19 through the gatherings because his “plan is to kill people.”
Can we take the gloves off and tell the truth?Trump is deliberately killing people. He holds rallies where people get infected. On Thursday, no social distancing or masks, sending a clear message that the CDC should be ignored.His plan is to kill people. Let’s just say it.
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