The Democrats’ behavior at the Twitter Files hearing the other day was disgraceful. They should have been concerned that Americans were being censored on the platform under the old owners, in concert with the government. But they weren’t because Democrats were involved in that censoring.
Instead of trying to rectify that, they went after the reporters who dared to report on it, trying to get them to name their sources in a shameful attack on freedom of the press—in addition to attacking the reporters as “so-called journalists.” Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) even tried to accuse Matt Taibbi of somehow profiting from it.
Indeed, this could harm the careers of the journalists involved, at least with the liberal media. If anything, the reporters who got involved were remarkably courageous, because anyone who challenges the Democratic narrative gets attacked just like this, regardless of the truth of what they are reporting. Imagine, also, Wasserman Schultz thinking she can talk to anyone about ethics given how she lost her position as head of the DNC for trying to rig things in the Democrat primaries against Bernie Sanders.
In addition to behaving shamefully, the Democrats also revealed how ignorant they were about the subject of the hearing. As I reported, Rep. Sylvia Garcia (D-TX) didn’t seem to understand how Matt Taibbi “broke” stories on Twitter. She had no idea what a Substack was or who reporter Bari Weiss was.
Now, not everyone would know those things. But if you’re supposed to be looking into the topic and you’re going to the effort to falsely smear people, you should at least do a modicum of research to know what you are talking about. Garcia didn’t appear to even do that, and, as I noted, got laughed at and brought down the house with an awkward question.
That ignorance wasn’t enough for “Threesome” Garcia. She didn’t seem to understand how badly she had humiliated herself and the Democrats. She kept going, saying this was about calling out “extreme MAGA lies.” It’s full-on bizarre that she’s proud of this questioning, and tweets it like it’s a good thing that she humiliated herself. That’s how clueless she is.
“To hide their inability to legislate, Republicans have launched a dangerous political circus that’s sole purpose is to inject extremist politics into our justice system,” Garcia claimed. “I will continue to fight Extreme MAGA Republican lies, misinformation, and outright conspiracy theories.”
Um, Sylvia? Where are the extreme MAGA people here or even the lies? None of the reporters are MAGA people. Indeed if anything, they would probably be called liberal — or at least they were up to this point. But Garcia didn’t seem to care about the facts or how she was flagellating the Constitution, attacking free speech.
But Matt Taibbi wouldn’t let this smear job go by and had a few things to say about this ridiculous attack on their reporting.
“Congresswoman, how does badgering a non-MAGA, non-Republican journalist to give up a source constitute fighting “Extreme MAGA Republican lies”?” Taibbi queried, likely making far too much sense for Garcia to comprehend. “Can you please identify something @ShellenbergerMD or I said that is extreme, a lie, or a conspiracy theory?” he continued.
Garcia can’t do that because there wasn’t anything. I’m willing to bet she didn’t even read any of the Twitter Files; she’s already shown she has no idea what she’s talking about. But Taibbi calling her out on the ridiculous smear shows how baseless the Democrats’ attacks are here. They don’t care about the Constitution; they don’t care about the facts. All they care about is that they are losing control of a vital media organ—and thereby their control of the narratives they want to push.