Rep. Mace talks border security, AOC's 'dishonest' account of Capitol riot
South Carolina Republican Rep. Nancy Mace reacts to 11 Iranians being arrested in Arizona and challenges Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's 'disgusting' politicization of the Capitol Hill riot.
CNN anchor Jake Tapper went on a viral rampage against freshman Rep. Nancy Mace, R-S.C. last week for daring to challenge Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's recounting of the deadly Capitol riot on Jan. 6.
Tapper's tantrum against the GOP lawmaker began on Thursday with a tweet that appeared to allude to Mace's suggestion that the "Squad" member was exaggerating her fears for her life. Mace had pointed out that the rioters who stormed Capitol Hill last month never reached the Cannon House Office Building, where both lawmakers have their offices.
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"That MAGA-allied officials and media are now attempting to pretend the Jan 6 MAGA terrorist attack wasn’t a big deal, that those who were scared aren’t being sincere (or any other whitewashing), was not only predictable it was predicted. Liars lie. It’s what they do," Tapper tweeted.
"The person Jake is subtweeting here like a catty Mean Girl is an actual rape survivor, Nancy Mace," conservative commentator Stephen Miller reacted. "There is no better example of what [CNN President] Jeff Zucker did to supposedly serious news people than turning Jake Tapper into a tabloid grade Keith Olbermann. And he went along with it $$$."
NewsBusters managing editor Curtis Houck similarly mocked the "subtweet" by pointing to Tapper's past praise of Mace, one of the few Republicans who have been outspoken about former President Trump's role in the events that led to the Jan. 6 violence.
"You should just decide whether she's someone you like and suck up to or a footsoldier for terrorists," Houck told Tapper.
Tapper revisited the issue Saturday after Mace sent a fundraising email using her public spat with Ocasio-Cortez.
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"@RepNancyMace fundraising off the false smear that @AOC misrepresented her experience during the insurrection. She didn’t," Tapper wrote as matter-of-factly. "Disappointing to see Mace do this. More on the smear, which has been fact checked, here," he additionally linked to a CNN "fact check."
"This isn't journalism; it's crisis comms," Ricochet editor-in-chief Jon Gabriel reacted.
On Sunday, Tapper wrote a thread quoting remarks from Ocasio-Cortez herself.
""In these past three weeks, I felt like it was important to give a window of opportunity, right? Maybe in some world, Senators Josh Hawley, or Senator Ted Cruz, or Representative Mo Brooks, would say: 'You know what? I was mistaken. I did not fully realize what the impact of my actions was going to be. And now in retrospect, I see that it incited something that I never wanted to incite. And for that, I am sorry.' But no. They've had almost a month. And they haven't said that. They have doubled down,'" Tapper wrote on behalf of the Squad member.
"And they said: 'I did the right thing. And if I could go back, I would do it all over again.' So that tells me that these people remain a present danger. Because what that tells me is that when given another window of political opportunity for themselves, even if they know that it means that it will endanger their colleagues, they will do it again," Tapper continued quoting the congressswoman.
Tablet Magazine associate editor Noam Blum reacted to Tapper's thread, "He really has just abandoned any pretense at this point."
Four days after Tapper's series of tweets began, the anchor fired back at one of his critics.
"I wasn’t talking about Rep Mace," Tapper told Stephen Miller on Monday night. "When I had something to say about her I did directly. Your tweet is false."
"Sure, Jake. You just happened to tweet this after inserting yourself into the Ocasio-Cortez spat," Miller dismissed the anchor's tweet.
This isn't the first time Tapper raised eyebrows while sticking his neck out for Ocasio-Cortez. Last March, the CNN anchor admitted that he didn't fact-check her claim during an interview when she alleged that then-President Trump called the coronavirus a "hoax" in the weeks leading up to the pandemic.
"I thought about it, because the president did not call the virus a hoax," Tapper tweeted at the time. "But I didn’t because he *did* call a hoax the concerns of those saying that the response from the president was insufficient and that he was downplaying the gravity of the crisis. And that too was a lie."
He continued, "I guess that’s the problem with a politician who lies so often; while I agree that Democrats are mischaracterizing what he said, what he did say was also false so it’s tough to justify taking the time for a fact check when it’s not taking a stand defining the truth."
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Tapper was also recently criticized for questioning the patriotism of Army veteran and double amputee, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla., for not backing Trump's impeachment.
"Congressman Brian Mast, a Republican from Florida -- who lost his legs, by the way, fighting for democracy abroad, although I don't know ... about his commitment to it here in the United States," Tapper said, referring to the 2010 IED explosion in Afghanistan that cost the congressman two of his limbs.