Republican Strategist Brad Todd (@BradOnMessage) attempted to make MAGA Republican violence the same as Progressive protests. Journalists @GarrettHaake & @KimberlyEAtkins called out the false equivalence.
Journalists did their job here.
GOP Strategist Brad Todd first tried to make GOP violence a mental illness thing.
“You know, you are seeing people who are really mentally disturbed, motivated by things that they see on the Internet,” Brad Todd said. “Some of it’s because Twitter won’t take down threats to Clarence Thomas’s life right now. The Internet is causing a lot of people to make connections they might not always make. But in the end, we have a mental health crisis. We need to talk about that.”
Notice he tried to bring in unrealized threats on Clarence Thomas to take the eyes off of the ball. Kimberly Atkins Stohr, an NBC News Correspondent, would have none of it.
“You want to address the Internet?” Kimberly Atkins Stohr snapped back. “I think one of the clearest examples we saw on January six is when Donald Trump finally, finally told the people at the Capitol to stand down. They did immediately. These are people reacting to messages that they are getting, that they have been getting consistently. And if you look at the political messaging that’s coming out, you don’t see Democrats threatening violence. You don’t see them holding guns.”
Brad Todd used examples of protestors shouting politicians out of restaurants. He also used an example of a politician telling folks to protest in the face of the aggrievers. NBC News Senior Capitol Hill Correspondent Garrett Haake would have none of it.
“Hitting pots and pans in the neighborhood or telling someone they’re not welcome in a restaurant is not the same as going into their home and hitting them with a hammer,” Garrett Haake said. “Protest is not the same as violence.”
I could not have said it any better. The two NBC journalists did their duty. Thank you.