Raw Story

A liberal analyst slammed the "pearl clutching" she sees in the right-wing media after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was murdered on Wednesday.

Ana Kasparian, co-host of "The Young Turks" podcast, discussed how the right-wing media has responded to Kirk's murder on a new podcast episode on Thursday. She said high-profile media figures on the right seem to be "hyping up a war with the left."

"The pearl clutching from the right is really bothering me, considering the record, the very real existing record, of their calls for violence or their mocking of left-wing figures," Kasparian said. "This whole thing is ridiculous."

Kasparian pointed to examples of conservative politicians downplaying or mocking political violence enacted against Democrats. For instance, she noted that Rep. Clay Higgins (R-LA) publicly shared disinformation about the attack on Paul Pelosi in 2022.

Higgins has also called for people who "belittle" Kirk to be banned from social media.

Chris Rufo, a prominent conservative writer, posted on X that "the last time the radical Left orchestrated a wave of violence and terror, J. Edgar Hoover shut it all down within a few years."

Kasparian argued that these reactions could

"Rather than taking the temperature down, rather than trying to find a way to ensure that there isn't additional violence, you have a sitting member of Congress talking about the need to permanently censor people on the left for their political speech," she said.

MAGA firebrand Laura Loomer escalated her fight with Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) after the lawmaker discussed a slain conservative activist in a podcast interview on Thursday.

Journalist Mehdi Hasan interviewed Omar on Zeteo News on Thursday. The two condemned Kirk's murder and expressed sympathy for Kirk's widowed family. However, right-wing internet accounts began spinning parts of the interview to make it seem like Omar was happy that Kirk was murdered.

"Right-wing accounts trying to spin a false story when I condemned his murder multiple times is fitting for their agenda to villainize the left to hide from the fact that Donald Trump gins up hate on a daily basis," Omar posted on X.

MAGA influencer Laura Loomer responded to Omar's post, calling her a "terrorist sympathizer" and "the enemy from within."

"Ilhan Omar needs to be removed from Congress," Loomer posted on X. "How much more damage are we going to allow Muslims to cause our country before we say ENOUGH IS ENOUGH with these invaders coming into our country and terrorizing Americans with their caveman ideology?"

Some of Kash Patel's leadership decisions at the FBI have been nothing short of "humiliating," according to one former conservative analyst.

Tim Miller, writer at large for The Bulwark, discussed Patel's leadership at the FBI on a recent episode of "The Bulwark Podcast." He recorded the episode before learning that conservative activist Charlie Kirk had been murdered at Utah Valley University on Wednesday. Patel's FBI is now leading the investigation, which has exposed some of the disarray behind the scenes.

Miller pointed out that Patel has made employment decisions based on an agent's political loyalty to President Donald Trump, citing a recent lawsuit filed by multiple former FBI Agents.

"It is sick what these people are doing at the FBI, it is absolutely sick," Miller said. "And it is going to lead to a more dangerous country. I think that both on the merits and on the politics of this, people should be outraged by the way that our federal police force is being run right now."

Miller also criticized Patel's handling of the investigation into Kirk's murder.

"Kash Patel absolutely bungled up publicly posting about having a suspect and then having to post again about how they had released the suspect," Miller said. "Humiliating."

Donald Trump’s desire to deport immigrants from the U.S. by force is running headlong into his drive to increase foreign investments in the U.S. in the hope that it will improve his dismal job numbers.

Asked about an immigration raid on a Hyundai facility in Georgia by agents working for DHS Secretary Kristi Noem that led to a round-up of 475 employees, many of them South Koreans sent to help with the set-up, NBC’s Christine Romans said foreign investors are becoming nervous.

"So talk about the concerns you've heard from South Korean business leaders,“ she was asked on MSNBC.

“Well, it's the collision of two Trump administration policies, right?’ she began. “Aggressive immigration enforcement and then using these trade deals to to get countries to invest more in the United States. Now, are you more likely in South Korea or elsewhere to invest more in the United States? If the 200 people that you've sent over to build the factory, literally, to train the American workers around it.”

“They just said they're the top investor,” MSNBC host Joe Scarborough prompted his guest.

”That's right, that's right and this is what part of the trade policy is to get more countries to send their companies here to build in the United States,” Romans replied. “At the same time, you have this very messy public image that is being broadcast here.”

“It's just these things are at cross purposes,” she elaborated. “What you hear from business leaders, overseas business leaders ,is that the us immigration system is a godawful mess, and that they need better visa pathways for skilled workers to get here. What you hear from MAGA, of course, and from many traditional Republicans as well, is that skilled worker visas take away American jobs, so it's not an easy sell on that end. It's a big mess and this is front and center here.”

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President Donald Trump issued a brief statement about the suddenly tense standoff between Poland and Russia.

Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned the NATO member's parliament that Russia had crossed a line by sending drones into its airspace during an early Wednesday attack against Ukraine, saying "this situation brings us the closest we have been to open conflict since World War II," and the U.S. president briefly commented on social media.

"What’s with Russia violating Poland’s airspace with drones?" Trump posted on Truth Social at 11:09a.m. EST. "Here we go!"

European leaders condemned the incident as an escalation by the Kremlin, which has continued its attacks on Ukraine despite Trump's efforts to push Russian President Vladimir Putin and Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy into peace talks.

Polish military officials called the incursion “act of aggression" and said all of the drones were shot down with help from NATO allies, and Tusk said he has activated Article 4 of NATO’s treaty, which allows member nations to demand consultations with their allies.

That's only the eighth time since NATO was established in 1949 that Article 4, which does not trigger a military reaction, has been invoked by a member.

A top-ranking public health official changed the subject when CNN's Kate Bolduan asked him to comment on Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr.'s past statements on vaccines.

Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Marty Makary appeared Wednesday morning on "CNN News Central," and Bolduan asked him to comment on new eligibility guidelines for vaccinations that had been reportedly keeping pregnant women from getting Covid shots.

"If this is the case, well, first of all, Kate, we've been very clear that anybody who wants a vaccine can get a vaccine," he said.

"They're not," Bolduan interjected. "They're not. You heard that from members of Congress. You heard that from, you've absolutely heard that from members of Congress when they even spoke to Robert Kennedy Jr. about that. You may want them to be able to get it if they want to, but because of the way the guidance has been rolled out and the way the recommendation has been pulled back, they are not able to either because pharmacists are afraid of liability or insurance is not covering it. It is not, if everybody wants it, they're not able to get it."

Makary once again insisted there were no barriers to patients receiving the shots, and he then tossed out a few red herrings and questioned whether they were safe and effective.

"Well, Kate, first of all, there is absolutely no regulatory barrier preventing somebody from getting it whatsoever," Makary said. "Now you can't get it at every Starbucks, but there is no rule that somebody cannot get it. What we have is a regulatory framework at the FDA that says we have to approve pharmaceutical claims based on the data that they presented to us, and so that's the standard. Now, some say we should just close our eyes and blindfold, blindly stamp, rubber stamp Covid vaccines in perpetuity every year without any updated clinical trial data."

The FDA commissioner then asked whether any healthy pregnant women had died from Covid in the past year and said administration officials were examining whether the vaccines had killed young people, and Bolduan challenged him on Kennedy's past statements on vaccines, in general.

"They do want they do want your leadership, absolutely, commissioner," she said. "FDA approves vaccines, the FDA is is is the gold standard in terms of approving vaccines, just as baseline. Since this is the topic, Secretary Kennedy, before he was secretary, had said that there's no vaccine that is safe and effective. Do you agree with that?"

Makary declined to answer directly but compared vaccines to the prescription medications advertised on television.

"Well, look, with every single medical product, I can just tell you as a physician, what we have to do is evaluate the safety to risk-benefit ratio," he said. "That is, every single product in all of medicine has some side-effect profile, and for some it's rare, and so that's the general framework, and that's what I think he was referring to."

The commissioner then changed the subject to pharmaceutical ads, saying the administration will now require ads to thoroughly list information related to all product risks, which Makary argued would lower drug prices and give consumers more data about medications, and CNN's host John Berman commented on his refusal to answer Bolduan's question.

"It's interesting," Berman said, as the segment ended. "His answer to the question about what Robert Kennedy said about vaccines, no vaccines being safe and effective, his answer was, we're trying to get rid of pharmaceutical ads. Really addressed the question there."

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