June 28, 2018

Sean Hannity Wasted No Time Blaming Maxine Waters for Capital Gazette Shooting

Meanwhile, his colleagues at Fox News wondered about the “ideological bent” of the paper.

As news broke Thursday afternoon of a gunman opening fire inside the offices of the Capital Gazette in Annapolis, Maryland, Sean Hannity wasted no time blaming Democrats, specifically Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) and former President Barack Obama, for fueling the potential motive behind the shooting. 

“I’ve been saying now for days that something horrible was going to happen because of the rhetoric,” Hannity said on his radio program Thursday afternoon. “Really Maxine?” He then went on to suggest that both Waters and Obama had urged people to “get in their faces, call them out, call your friends, get protesters, follow them into restaurants and shopping malls, and wherever else she said.”

The inflammatory comments come amid this week’s controversy over Waters’ recent remarks in which she encouraged Democrats to protest Trump administration officials in public. President Donald Trump, along with many other conservatives, immediately seized upon the comments to falsely accuse the California lawmaker of attempting to incite violence against administration officials.

Meanwhile, as reports of what had occurred at the Capital Gazette’s offices were slowly confirmed, Hannity’s colleagues on Fox News speculated on-air about the “ideological bent” of the newspaper. Anchor Trace Gallagher noted that it was very much a “local” news organization, before stating that they had no confirmed information about the gunman’s motives.

On Facebook, the far-right provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos insisted that he “wasn’t being serious” with his comments this week calling on people to start “gunning journalists down on sight.”

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“Lying.” “Disgusting.” “Scum.” “Slime.” “Corrupt.” “Enemy of the people.” Donald Trump has always made clear what he thinks of journalists. And it’s plain now that his administration intends to do everything it can to stop journalists from reporting things they don’t like—which is most things that are true.

No one gets to tell Mother Jones what to publish or not publish, because no one owns our fiercely independent newsroom. But that also means we need to directly raise the resources it takes to keep our journalism alive. There’s only one way for that to happen, and it’s readers like you stepping up. Please help with a donation today if you can—even a few bucks will make a real difference. A monthly gift would be incredible.

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