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Tensions at a heated House Judiciary Committee hearing on online hate speech boiled over on Tuesday, when conservative commentator Candace Owens accused Rep. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., of distorting her comments on Hitler so flagrantly for the sake of a smear that he must “believe black people are stupid.”
“In congressional hearings, the minority party gets to select its own witnesses,” Lieu began. “Of all the people the Republicans could’ve selected, they picked Candace Owens. I don’t know Miss Owens; I’m not going to characterize her; I’m going to let her own words talk.”
Lieu then produced a cellphone and played a short clip of Owens’ previous remarks at a conference in December, which were widely circulated in February: “I actually don’t have any problem with the word ‘nationalism.’ I think the definition gets poisoned by elites that want globalism. Globalism is what I don’t want. When we say ‘nationalism,’ the first thing people think about — at least in America — is Hitler. You know, he was a national socialist, but if Hitler just wanted to make Germany great and have things run well, OK then, fine. The problem is, he had dreams outside of Germany. He wanted to globalize. He wanted everyone to be German. …”
Owens’ remarks echoed those of President Trump, who has repeatedly defended nationalism against progressive attacks that the concept is intrinsically racist.
Lieu then asked committee witness Eileen Hershenov: “When people try to legitimize Adolf Hitler, does that feed into white nationalist ideology?”
But Owens soon made clear she felt Lieu had intentionally misrepresented her views to drive a false narrative not just against Owens, but also Trump and Republicans in general.
“I think it’s pretty apparent that Mr. Lieu believes that black people are stupid and will not pursue the full clip in its entirety,” Owens said.
udiciary Committee Chairman Jerry Nadler, D-NY., interrupted, telling Owens, “It is not proper to refer disparagingly to a member of the committee. The witness will not do that again.”
After clarifying that she had not, in fact, called Lieu stupid, Owens continued: “As I said, he is assuming that black people will not go and pursue the full two-hour clip. He purposefully cut off — and you didn’t hear the question that was asked of me. He’s trying to present as if I was launching a defense of Hitler in Germany, when in fact the question that was presented to me was pertaining to wheher I believed in nationalism, and that nationalism was bad.”
As Owens went on, Lieu tapped his hands together silently.
“And what I responded is that I do not believe we should be characterizing Hitler as a nationalist,” Owens said. “He was a homicidal, psychopathic maniac that killed his own people. A nationalist would not kill their own people. … That was unbelievably dishonest, and he did not allow me to respond to it.”
WIBC host Tony Katz played Owens comments in their entirety and offered commentary Wednesday afternoon. Click the link below to hear Tony’s full commentary.
