CNN anchor claims BLM not comparable to Capitol riots
Senior policy analyst at the Independent Women's Forum Patrice Onwuka weighs in on 'Fox & Friends First.'
Former New York Magazine columnist Andrew Sullivan blasted The New York Times for its characterization of the violence that took place last year following the death of George Floyd in an attempt to separate the riots that took place on Capitol Hill earlier this month.
In a piece published on Sunday, Times national political reporter Astead Herndon accused Republicans of "warping reality" with their response to the pro-Trump mob that stormed the Capitol building as Congress was voting to certify the Electoral College victory of President-elect Biden.
"Loyalists to President Trump are increasingly relying on conspiracy theories and misinformation, drawing false equivalence with last summer’s racial protests and blaming outside agitators," Herndon began.
Herndon interviewed voters on both sides of the aisle in Kenosha, Wisconsin, where the police-involved shooting of Jacob Blake took place, and appeared to downplay the violence that occurred last summer.
"Democrats pointed to the differences in motivation between the Capitol mob and the mass protests of the Black Lives Matter movement, which was not seeking to overturn an election or being incited by the president," the Times reporter explained. "Republicans saw the Capitol attack as the work of outsiders or as justified by the summer’s isolated incidents of looting and property destruction."
Sullivan took exception to the Times' framing of the vandalism and looting that took place during the Black Lives Matter protests.
"Last summer was just 'isolated instances of property destruction.' That's how the NYT describes $1 - 2 billion of damage this summer in a news story - the biggest in US history," Sullivan wrote, linking to an Axios report that compiled information from the Insurance Information Institute outlining how costly the violence was in comparison to other U.S. civil disturbances.
Last year, Sullivan launched his own newsletter The Weekly Dish after he was forced out of his longtime gig at New York Magazine. At the time, Sullivan claimed a "critical mass" of the staff and management at the publication and its parent company Vox Media no longer wanted to associated with him.